Banjo Paterson, born Andrew Barton Paterson (1864-1941), was a poet, ballad writer, journalist and horseman, who is perhaps best known for having written Waltzing Matilda, the alternative Australian national anthem, and the Outback narrative poem The Man from Snowy River, which has been made into a movie.
Banjo Paterson was born at Narrambla, near Orange, in western New South Wales.
He attended school in Binalong near Narrambla, then Sydney Grammar School. He subsequently became a solicitor and in the late 1880s started publishing verse in The Bulletin and Sydney Mail, using the pseudonyms "B" and "Banjo," from which the name Banjo Paterson came about.
Waltzing Matilda is said to have been composed in 1895, during which year the book The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses was published.
The book sold out within a week and went through four more editions in the next six months.
Banjo Paterson died on February 6, 1941, after a life lived in law, writing, and war. (He worked as a war correspondent in the Boer War and served as an ambulance driver in World War I).
Banjo Paterson was married to Alice Walker, with whom he had two children, Grace and Hugh.