- Born
- 24 May 1819
London, England - Died
- 30 October 1900
Ryde, New South Wales, Australia
Summary
De Boos was born in London and came to Australia in 1839, working on the land briefly before beginning a career in journalism, writing for the Monitor and the Sydney Gazette. He moved to Melbourne at the beginning of the 1850s and spent time in the Victorian goldfields, writing articles about his experiences for the Argus. He later returned to Sydney where he was appointed Parliamentary reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1875 he became a mining warden and magistrate in the New South Wales Riverina. As well as being a prolific journalist De Boos produced short stories and a number of novels, the best known of which is Fifty Years Ago: An Australian Tale (1867), later reprinted in an abridged form as Settler or Savage. Other works include the mining tales Mark Brown's Wife (1871), Mr Pick the Miner (1867), and the Mystery of Big Oakey (1893) as well as the historical bushranging novel The Stockman's Daughter (1856).