Adam Lindsay Gordon

Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–1870) was an Australian poet, born in the Azores to a Scottish family and educated in England, where a reckless youth led his father to send him to South Australia in 1853. He served as a mounted policeman and horse-breaker, rode in steeplechases with distinction, sat briefly in the South Australian parliament and lost his money in a livery business. His collections Sea Spray and Smoke Drift and Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes include The Sick Stockrider and How We Beat the Favourite. He shot himself the day after the second appeared. He is the only Australian poet honored with a bust in Westminster Abbey.