In a tiny, ill-lit room at the Wanderer's Club*, Albury (NSW), in 1952, an 86 year old man sat adding the final lines to a book which had taken much of a lifetime to compile, 'A Bushman's Biography'. William James Wye, author, poet and bushman, was dying. But before he died he completed what may well have proved to be one of the most fascinating stories of the Australian bush ever written.
At that time, he was being interviewed by Eric Jessup for 'Hoofs and Horns' (an Australian horse magazine), and produced 'A Bushman's Biography' from a battered suitcase in the corner of the room, with shaking hand.
Written in spidery, cramped longhand, the manuscript contained over 7,000 foolscap lines - 80,000 words about a lifetime of wanderings throughout Australia.
Inside the cover Mr. Wye had written, 'This volume of narratives is more appropriate than attractive. It has no pretentions (sic) to art, nor literary merit - being simply the true recordings of an Australian bushman'.
William Wye was more than just a bushman and horse lover, he lived a life packed with sufficient incident to satiate any other ten men - yet still he was curious about the Outback, it's people, and the ways of the bush.
If he had not exactly 'walked with the great', he had known and held the secrets of some of the best-known men in Australia's history. He numbered among his friends the Kellys and a score of other, lesser-known, bushrangers.
Like Henry Lawson and George Bernard Shaw, he was a member of Melbourne's famous 'Bread and Cheese Club'. Mr. Wye was a poet of great merit, a man of whom 'The Bulletin' said in the 1920's 'Mr. Wye is probably the greatest of all Australia's horse poets, greater than Henry Lawson'.
Several books of his verse - all about horses, stations and the outback he loved so well, had been published. Clippings and other writings awaiting publication filled several trunks.
'A Bushman's Biography' is rich in personal contact with Australian history and the men who made it. It gives a startling insight into the lives of the Kelly gang, hitherto unpublished accounts of how numerous famous robberies and murders occurred - as told to Mr. Wye by the bushrangers themselves on condition the facts were never published during their lives.
Billy Wye's personal story starts at a branch of the Broken River at Benalla (Vic.), when his father was left an orphan at his mother's graveside. His father remained at the graveside for several hours until picked up by a tribe of friendly blacks on walkabout.
They took him with them and for some years he lived as an aboriginal and learned to hunt like them and speak their language. Later he was taken away from them and worked in a mine. He later became one of the best bushmen Australia has ever known.
Billy Wye was born during the Myrtleford (V.) gold rush in 1866. For years he followed the golden metal through every field in Australia. He made fortunes and lost them, and found fields that were still producing sixty years later.
With packhorses he travelled the length and breadth of the Outback. There was scarcely a cattle station or a part of the Outback that he hadn't been on.
He was a race-horse trainer and followed bush meetings across Queensland; Outback meetings where he gained much of the material for his poems. He was a brumby hunter and a dingo trapper.
William Wye died just before the end of 1952.
After his death his biographical manuscript, along with a suitcase full of photographs and literature disappeared from the ramshackle dwelling of the Wanderer's Club in Albury where he spent his final days.
It is said that a close friend of his destroyed them, because there may have been an uproar, as some of the contents were very controversial.
These notes come from the writings of Dianne Carroll, regional historian, researcher, genealogist and author of the high country who spent over four years trying to find the biography, but to no avail.
Along the way Dianne managed to recover single verses and stories, hand-writtten documents and letters, records and photos from which she created 'The Billy Wye Collection'.
Dianne never set out to publish the works of William Wye, but to fulfil a dying man's wish, which was to have his manuscript placed in the Mitchell Library, a wish that never eventuated.
At the request of Billy Wyes family, Dianne collated enough material to publish his works, including facts of their heritage and details of his life.
Published in 1997, 'Billy Wye, He Was Forgotten' records the story of Billy's life, which, unfortunately will never be complete without one day his biography re-appears.
The book is based on documentation that Dianne was able to locate and also the stories remembered by those who knew him. The missing pieces can be found in the poetry that he wrote with his great love for country.
* The wanderer's club was an institution where many an old Australian bushman ended his days.
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