Eliza Hamilton Dunlop and Early Music Printing in Australia
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Anonymous pieces present their own set of bibliographic challenges, and recently we stumbled upon one song with a trio of unknowns: no composer, an unidentified poet, and an unfamiliar publisher.
The song was “The Irish volunteers,” published in Sydney, Australia (RISM ID no. 990071461; RISM Online | RISM Catalog). Given its inclusion in RISM’s A/I series, [an index of printed music published before 1800] (https://rism.info/publications.html#ai-einzeldrucke-vor-1800-individual-prints-before-1800){:blank}, we might presume that this edition dated from the 18th century, and indeed the year “1780” on the source pointed to that conclusion as well. Adding to the mysteries, this is the only imprint from Australia that was documented in A/I.
At first, we didn’t know more than what was originally in the A/I entry:
We did not have further information about the publisher, F. Ellard, and the name of the poet, Mrs. E. H. Dunlop, was not indexed at all.
A search for clues online quickly steered us to the website Australharmony, run by Dr. Graeme Skinner from the University of Sydney. Using the Checklist of Australian sheet music prints, 1834-c.1850 we learned that the author of the words was Eliza Hamilton Dunlop (1796-1880), a writer and composer who was born in Ireland and settled in Australia in 1838. In her adopted country, she was widely published as a poet and she transcribed and translated Indigenous songs. The publisher was Francis Ellard (ca. 1802-1854), a fellow Irish emigrant to Australia in the 1830s.
With this information, it became apparent that the year “1780” for the song was incongruous with the birth years of both Dunlop and Ellard. The Australharmony entry for the song found first mentions of the piece in Australian newspapers from April 1843 that matched in many ways the wording in the RISM record. The formulation in the papers suggested that 1780 referred to the year the music was written, not the year of publication.
But we were still wondering if this publication from 1843 referred to the same edition that was described in A/I. The only holding library listed is the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Music Division (US-NYp). An inquiry there resulted in them kindly sending us images to confirm. Now it was clear: the year “1780” is prominent on the title page, and this is probably what caused the imprint to be included in RISM’s early cataloging project of pre-1800 music. However, the edition is clearly the 1843 publication. Though undated, the New York Public Library’s copy is, remarkably, Dunlop’s autographed presentation copy, signed in lower right of title page with her initials “E. H. D.” Even without the signature of Dunlop, the dedication to Maurice Charles O’Connell (1766/1768-1848) – the third Irish settler to Australia in this story – places the work firmly in the 19th century.
Communication with Dr. Skinner of Australharmony led to additional background information about this song. The original tune is known as “Lord Charlemont’s march” or “March of the Irish volunteers” by a composer called Elfort (only this last name is known). The march circulated in several sources, including in a John Lee edition published in Dublin around 1782 (RISM ID no. 1001377281; RISM Online | RISM Catalog).
All puzzle pieces thus fell into place: We determined the identities of the composer, the poet, and the publisher. We have the year and the music incipit, and can explain how it came to be included in RISM’s A/I series. As a composer herself, Dunlop likely played a stronger musical role than the title page suggests, and she was presumably the driving force behind its publication.
Special thanks go to Graeme Skinner (University of Sydney) of Australharmony and Rebecca Littman (New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Music Division) for their assistance in identifying RISM’s earliest printed music from Australia. Much more about the history of written music in Australia can be found on Australharmony.
Image: Cover to Elfort, The Irish volunteers (Sydney: F. Ellard, 1843), autographed presentation copy signed by Eliza H. Dunlop. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Music Division: Mus Res *MO (Irish) box (courtesy of New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; public domain). (RISM ID no. 990071461; RISM Online | RISM Catalog)
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