Caroline Carleton was an English-born South Australian poet who is best known for her prize-winning poem "Song of Australia", which, put to a tune by Carl Linger, was used as a patriotic song in South Australian schools and elsewhere, and was one of four options in a 1977 national plebiscite to select a National Song.
Caroline Carleton
S.A. Typographical Society Eight Hour Celebration reprint of "The Song of Australia" by Caroline Carlton [sic]
Song sheet c. 1877
"The Song of Australia" was composed as the result of 1859 competition to create a "patriotic song", sponsored by the Gawler Institute in Adelaide. The winning lyrics were written by an English-born poet, Caroline Carleton, and the music chosen by the judges was composed by the German-born Carl Linger (1810-1862), a prominent member of the Australian Forty-Eighters.
Cover of the Marshall and Sons edition, ca. 1877
S.A. Typographical Society Eight Hour Celebration reprint of the poem by Caroline Carlton [sic], 1893