Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Poet, journalist, and editor. Alternative signature: “J. C. Paterson.” Born in Ayr c. 1823. Brother of journalist Robert Paterson. Possibly the nephew of author and antiquary James Paterson. Initially trained as a compositor for Ayr Advertiser. Emigrated to Victoria, Australia, in 1852-1853, during the gold rush, and he may have continued to publish unsigned poems. Worked as a reporter and then commercial editor for the Melbourne Argus. Became Special Commissioner for the Argus in 1862 and reported on gold fields in Victoria and New South Wales. Afterwards become the Argus’s main parliamentary reporter until c. 1874, and then edited the Melbourne Punch and then the daily Advertiser in Geelong. Afterwards he moved to Tasmania and edited the Evening Mail, then moved to New Zealand and edited the Wellington Independent and then the Nelson Colonist. Overwork destroyed his health, and he died in the Dunedin Lunatic Asylum shortly after being admitted in February 1879. Author of A Lay of Life and Other Poems (1845). Biographical information: Modern Scottish Poets, twelfth series, D. H. Edwards, 1889, p. 246-8. (AC)