Barbara Baynton

Human Toll (Dodo Press) Barbara Baynton

Barbara Janet Ainsleigh Baynton, Lady Headley (1857- 1929) was an Australian writer, made famous for Bush Studies (1902) which was written in retaliation to Henry Lawson's works. In 1880, she married Alexander Frater, the son of her employers. However, he ran off with a servant, Sarah Glover, in 1887, and Barbara moved to Sydney and commenced divorce proceedings. In 1890 she married Dr Thomas Baynton, a retired surgeon aged 70 years who had literary friends. A few years later she began contributing short stories to the Bulletin and six of these were published in 1902 in London under the title of Bush Studies. She was unable to find a publisher for them in Sydney. Her husband died in 1904 and left his entire estate to her. She invested in the stock market, bought and sold antiques, and collected black opals from Lightning Ridge. In 1907, her only novel, Human Toll, was published, and in 1917 Cobbers, a reprint of Bush Studies with two additional stories, appeared. During World War I she lived in England and in 1921 she married her third husband Baron Headley.