Price Warung
Price Warung, born William Astley in Liverpool in 1855, was a notable figure in Australian literature and journalism. After relocating to Victoria, Australia, with his family in 1859, he developed an early interest in storytelling, particularly influenced by a medical officer’s accounts of the penal system. Warung's career flourished when he worked for the Bulletin in Sydney, where he published numerous short stories that vividly depicted Australian life and the experiences of convicts. He adopted the pseudonym "Price Warung," merging his mother’s maiden name with a name reflecting a native place in Sydney. His significant works include collections such as "Tales of the Convict System" and "Half-Crown Bob and Tales of the Riverine." Despite facing personal challenges, including a degenerative spinal condition and subsequent morphine addiction, Warung remained committed to social reform, advocating for workers' rights and criticizing the injustices of the penal system through his writing. He passed away in 1911, but his literary contributions continue to resonate as a reflection of his time and the issues he passionately addressed.
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Price Warung
Writer
- Born: August 13, 1855
- Birthplace: Liverpool, England
- Died: September 5, 1911
- Place of death: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Biography
Price Warung was born William Astley in Liverpool, England, in 1855, the second son of Thomas and Mary Astley. His family moved to Victoria, Australia, in 1859. Warung’s father became a watchmaker in Richmond, outside Melbourne, and Warung attended schools run by the Anglican church. During his teenage years, Warung met Henry Graham, who told the young man of his experiences as a medical officer in Australia’s penal system. Warung was stunned and engrossed by the man’s accounts of the notorious conditions, and these tales would feature in his later writings.
Soon thereafter, Warung decided upon a journalism career, and he worked in rural Victoria and New South Wales before establishing himself in Sydney in 1891. Warung traveled the Murray River for two years, later using the experiences to write his collection of short stories Half-Crown Bob and Tales of the Riverine (1898), and he spent significant time in Melbourne, recovering from an illness. Around this time, he also entered into a brief and unhappy marriage.
After settling in Sydney, Warung began working for the Bulletin and his first story in the newpaper, “How Muster-Master Stoneman Earned His Breakfast,” appeared in May, 1890. During the next three years, he published eighty-four stories, and it was with these stories that he established the Price Warung pseudonym. The name paid homage to the burgeoning writer’s heritage, with Price being his mother’s maiden name and Warung being the name of a native place in Sydney. In 1893, Warung took over editorship of the Australian Workman, a newspaper promoting the cause of the Trades and Labour Council, and he published his story “The Strike of ’95” in this journal.
The stories Warung wrote for the Bulletin were collected in three volumes: Tales of the Convict System (1892), Tales of the Early Days (1894), and Tales of the Old Regime, and The Bullet of the Fated Ten (1897). Warung also gathered stories he had published in the periodical Truth in his book Tales of the Isle of Death (1898). By 1891, Warung was suffering from a degenerative spinal condition, and the disease and the morphine addiction it led to slowly debilitated him and left him unable to work, keep commitments, earn a living, or even sleep for the last several years of his life, which were spent in poverty and pain. He died in Sydney on September 5, 1911.
Still, his brief tenure left an impact. In the years when he prolifically published his short stories, newspaper articles, and other works, Warung also adamantly worked for reform, urging political leaders and the press to take up social causes, even leading a people’s convention in Bathurst in 1896. In addition, his famed stories unapologetically criticized and revealed the atrocities of Australia’s penal system.