Rosa Campbell Praed

Rosa Campbell Praed (; 26 March 1851 – 10 April 1935), often credited as Mrs. Campbell Praed (and also known as Rosa Caroline Praed), was an Australian novelist in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Her large bibliography covered multiple genres, and books for children as well as adults. She has been described as the first Australian novelist to achieve a significant international reputation. Early life Rosa Murray-Prior was born on 26 March 1851 in Bromelton in the Moreton Bay area of the Colony of New South Wales. She was the third child of Thomas Murray-Prior (1819–1892) and Matilda Harpur. Her father was born in England and went to Sydney in May 1839. He afterwards took up grazing country in Queensland and became a member of the then colony's Legislative Council. He was postmaster-general in the second Robert Herbert ministry in 1866, in the Robert Ramsay Mackenzie ministry, 1867-8, and the Arthur Hunter Palmer ministry, 1870-4, and was elected chairman of committees in the council in July 1889. After Matilda's death in 1868, he married Nora C. Barton, aunt of the poet Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson. Praed was brought up on stations in the Burnett River district until the age of seven, at which time the family "moved following the massacre by Aborigines of the Fraser family at Hornet Bank station and the retaliatory massacre of Aborigines by whites". They resettled in Brisbane, where Murray-Prior bought a banana plantation in Ormiston.