1 Despite extensive searches, I have failed to find any official record of Emily Howard's birth.Google Scholar

2 May, Bernice, ‘E. Coungeau’, The Australian Woman's Mirror, 3 April 1928, p. 11.Google Scholar

3 Coungeau, Emily, ‘The Legend of Osyth's Wood’, 'Stella Australis': Poems, Verses and Fragments, 1st edn, Brisbane: Gordon and Gotch, 1914, pp. 87–89; Emily Coungeau, ‘A Roman Road’, Fern Leaves: Poems and Verse, Brisbane: W.R. Smith and Paterson, 1934, pp. 31–33.Google Scholar

4 May, ‘E. Coungeau’, p. 11.Google Scholar

5 May, ‘E. Coungeau’, pp. 11, 35.Google Scholar

6 The surname ‘Coungeau’ is a Gallicized version of Kongos. See Gilchrist, Hugh, Australians and Greeks, Volume 1: The Early Years. Sydney: Halstead Press, 1992, p. 233. Naoum was often Anglicised as Norman.Google Scholar

7 May, ‘Coungeau, E.’, p. 11.Google Scholar

8 Clarke, Drury, letter to Russell Hemingway dated 31 May 1982, JOL Coungeau B106.Google Scholar

9 Coungeau, Emily, letter to Mrs Bertie [the poet E.M. England], 1 Dec. 1927, Fryer Library F1291a.Google Scholar

10 Information from Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos, the great-niece of Emily Coungeau. See entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography for Amos William Howard (1848–1930), who migrated to Australia in 1876.Google Scholar

11 Poem signed Emily Howard, S.S. [Delcomyn], 14/4/87, in the papers of Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos.Google Scholar

12 See Gilchrist, Hugh, Australians and Greeks: Volume 1: The Early Years, p. 233. Gilchrist claims that Naoum Kongos arrived in Australia in 1889.Google Scholar

13 Clarke, Drury, letter to Russell Hemingway, 31 May 1982, John Oxley Library, Coungeau B106. I have been unable to establish conclusively that the earlier business was located on the same premises, but it appears very likely.Google Scholar

14 ‘The Olympia [sic] Cafe’, Brisbane Courier, 29 October, 1898, p. 4. Advertisements in the same newspaper show that the correct name was the Olympian Cafe.Google Scholar

15 May, ‘E. Coungeau’, pp. 11, 35.Google Scholar

16 ‘Emily Coungeau Passes On’, Sunday Mail, 2 August 1936, p. 23. Drury Clarke, letter to Russell Hemingway dated 31 Mary 1982, John Oxley Library, Coungeau B106. The Coungeaus appear to have lived on the premises.Google Scholar

17 May, ‘E. Coungeau’, p. 11.Google Scholar

18 H.Y., ‘Emily Coungeau Passes On, By a Friend’, The Sunday Mail, 2 August, 1936, p. 2. The Courier-Mail acquired two aeroplanes in December 1927, becoming the first daily newspaper in Australia to found its own air delivery service. The publicity contains no reference to a donation from the Coungeaus, but such a gift would be consistent with their enthusiasm for both culture and commercial development, and their friendship with Charles Herbert Briggs of The Courier-Mail.Google Scholar

19 Lahey, Vida, ‘Monday Morning’ (1912), oil on canvas, Queensland Art Gallery, Acc. 1:0122 (gift of Madame Emily Coungeau through the Queensland Art Society, 1912).Google Scholar

20 Lahey, Shirley, The Laheys: Pioneer Settlers and Sawmillers, Taringa, Qld: Shirley Lahey, 2003), pp. 237–38.Google Scholar

21 McInnes, W.B., ‘Jewish Quarter, Morocco’ (c. 1909–12), oil on canvas board, Queensland Art Gallery, Acc. 1:0052, gift of Madame Emily Coungeau, 1914.Google Scholar

22 Coungeau, Emily, letter to Walter and Ettie Howard, 1 July 1936, in the papers of Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos. ‘Death of Mr N. Coungeau: “Coungeau House” Will Perpetuate Name’, The Courier-Mail, 8 September 1936, p. 17.Google Scholar

23 ‘Noted Authoress: Her Delightful Home’, The Brisbane Courier, 23 November 1926, p. 18.Google Scholar

24 M'Mahon, Thos. J., ‘Bribie Island: Cypress Pine Possibilities’, The Brisbane Courier, 21 June 1930, p. 13.Google Scholar

25 England, E.M., ‘Emily Coungeau and Her Verse’, The Brisbane Courier, 28 January 1928, p. 20.Google Scholar

26 Fryer Library, F1291b, letter from Emily Coungeau to Mrs Bertie (the poet E.M. England), 4 December 1928.Google Scholar

27 Coungeau, Emily, letter to Ettie Howard 29 January 1936, in the papers of Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos. See also letter from Drury Clarke to Russell Hemingway, 31 May 1982, John Oxley Library B106.Google Scholar

28 A short history of Coungeau House is available at www.toch.org.au/coungeau_house.htm (accessed 9/10/06). In a telephone conversation on 9 October 2006, Ray Geise, Chairman of Toc H Australia, informed me that the house had been raised in the 1970s, but that otherwise it remains in its original condition. Painter Ian Fairweather's hut now stands in the grounds, after being condemned and relocated from its original site on Bribie Island.Google Scholar

29 ‘St Osyth's “Cloistered Loveliness”: Rise to Fame of One of Her Daughters’, Essex Times and Gazette, 10 August 1935.Google Scholar

30 Kellow, H.A., Queensland Poets (London: George Harrap, 1930), p. 244. Kellow mistakenly refers to the poet as ‘Ethel’ Coungeau.Google Scholar

31 Coungeau, Emily, ‘The City of the Purple Hills’, Rustling Leaves: Selected Poems, Sydney: William Brooks, 1920, pp. 151–52.Google Scholar

32 Coungeau, Emily, ‘Queensland Pioneers’ in 'Stella Australis', 1st edn, p. 10.Google Scholar

33 Coungeau, 'Stella Australis', 1st ed., n.p.Google Scholar

34 Kellow, Queensland Poets, p. 243.Google Scholar

35 Coungeau, Emily, ‘Australia to the Empire Mother’ and ‘Australia's Destiny’, 'Stella Australis', 1st edn, pp. 61–63, 32–33.Google Scholar

36 Coungeau, Emily, ‘The Story of Anzac’, Rustling Leaves, pp. 121–23.Google Scholar

37 Coungeau, Emily, ‘The Price of Conquest’, Rustling Leaves, p. 97. Rustling Leaves contains a number of poems in this style, including ‘In Memoriam — Gallipoli’, pp. 101–02; ‘Cavell — Martyr— 1915', pp. 108–09; ‘Lest We Forget — Gallipoli’, p. 119; ‘The Return, 1919–20’, pp. 133–34; The Deathless Dead, 1919’, pp. 145–46.Google Scholar

38 Coungeau, ‘Austral's Heroes’, 'Stella Australis', 1st edn, p. 39.Google Scholar

39 Coungeau, Emily, ‘Byzantium’, Rustling Leaves, pp. 105–06. This poem first appeared in the Brisbane Courier, 31 March 1915, p. 9.Google Scholar

40 Coungeau, 'Stella Australis', 1st ed., pp. 1, 37, 49.Google Scholar

41 Coungeau, Emily, 'Stella Australis': Poems and Verses, 2nd edn (Brisbane: Gordon and Gotch, 1916). Bishop William Thomas Thornhill Webber (1837–1903) laid the foundation stone of Brisbane's neo-Gothic St John's Cathedral in 1901.Google Scholar

42 Coungeau, 'Stella Australis', 1st ed., pp. 13, 27.Google Scholar

43 Coungeau, Emily, ‘Centenary Prize Poem, 1924: Discovery of the Brisbane River: Commemoration’, Palm Fronds: Poems and Verse (Brisbane: Smith and Paterson, 1927), pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

44 Coungeau, ‘Opening of the Commonwealth Parliament: 9th of May, 1927: Commemoration: Invocation’, Palm Fronds, pp. 83–85.Google Scholar

45 Coungeau, Emily, Princess Mona: A Romantic Poetical Drama (Brisbane: William Brooks [1916]), pp. 18, [51], 52, 61.Google Scholar

46 ‘Woman Librettist: Awakening of Australia: Island of Pearls’, Sun, 3 September 1922, p. 9.Google Scholar

47 Lahey, The Laheys, p. 237.Google Scholar

48 ‘“Auster”: Hill's Idyllic Music Pleases Vast Audience’, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 September 1922, p. 10.Google Scholar

49 de N., L. [Ladislas de Noskowski], 'Auster’, The Sydney Mail, 6 September 1922, p. 33.Google Scholar

50 ‘Woman's Letter’, The Bulletin, 7 September 1922, p. 42.Google Scholar

51 de N., L. [Ladislas de Noskowski], 'Auster', p. 34.Google Scholar

52 ‘First Australian Opera: Libretto by Queensland Poetess’, The Courier-Mail, 28 February 1935, p. 13.Google Scholar

53 Hill, Alfred, letter to Emily Coungeau, 28 February [1935], JOL OM79.Google Scholar

54 ‘Some First Nights’ in ‘Shows’, The Bulletin, 3 April 1935, p. 16.Google Scholar

55 Matthews, George, ‘Alfred Hill's Opera Has a Grand Presentation’, The Australian Women's Weekly, 6 April 1935.Google Scholar

56 Waters, Thorold ‘Auster: Premier of Alfred Hill's Opera’, The Australian Musical News, 1 April 1935, p. 4. Emily Coungeau transcribed this review into an exercise book, which also contained other reviews and some of her published and unpublished works (John Oxley Library, Emily Coungeau papers, OM79 — 17/7.)Google Scholar

57 ‘Some First Nights’, The Bulletin, p. 16.Google Scholar

58 Kellow, Queensland Poets, p. 243.Google Scholar

59 ibid., p. 243.Google Scholar

60 McKay, Belinda, ‘“The One Jarring Note': Race and Gender in Queensland Women's Writing to 1939', Queensland Review 8(1) (2001), pp. 31–54.Google Scholar

61 Extract from letter from Emily Coungeau to her brother Bertie (Albert Edward Howard), 3 June 1922, in the papers of Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos. Coungeau's poem ‘Wirajuri’ was published in Emily Coungeau, Rustling Leaves, p. 116. ‘Reincarnation’ appears in Palm Fronds, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

62 Coungeau, ‘Evolution’, Rustling Leaves, p. 28. A similar sense of geological formations as evidence of God's creation is found in ‘The Glasshouse Mountains, Q.’ (Rustling Leaves, p. 31), where these volcanic plugs are ‘Mighty Monoliths of Nature's Mould’ and the ‘watch towers of the plain’.Google Scholar

63 Duncan, George J. C. Mrs, Pre-Adamite Man: Or the Story of Our Old Planet and Its Inhabitants Told by Scripture and Science, London: Nisbet and Co., 1862.Google Scholar

64 Blavatsky, H.P., The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II, London: Theosophical Publishing Co., note, pp. 195–96.Google Scholar

65 ‘The Sentinels’, Rustling Leaves, p. 115.Google Scholar

66 Coungeau, ‘Wirajuri’, Rustling Leaves, pp. 116–17.Google Scholar

67 Coungeau, ‘What is Man?’ Rustling Leaves, pp. 42–43.Google Scholar