Pity the Swagman

Biography of Joseph Jenkins (1818–98). Tregaron tenant farmer Jenkins was innovative and successful with an award for the best farm in the county, and was an influential figure, involved in local politics and the building of the Manchester and Milford railway through the area. Despite this, aged 50, he left his wife and nine children without a word, and traveled to Australia. For the next two decades he lived there as a swagman: an itinerant farm laborer. Despite having little formal education, Jenkins had a keen intellect and a thirst for self-improvement through reading, and was a poet in both Welsh and English, winning 13 consecutive prizes at the Ballarat St David's Day Eisteddfod for his englyniau (a specific form of Welsh-language poetry) so he is remembered also as a man of letters. The book draws greatly on the journals he kept in both Wales and Australia.