In the previous decade I attended a talk on Australian folk music at the local historic society.  I was surprised when the speaker made the claim that Australia's "first bush band" The Bushwhackers was founded by John Meredith in 1952.  After all, the music that formed their repertoire had been collected by Meredith and was dated decades earlier.  I felt that at least parts of this collection must had been performed in the 'bush' by groups of musically inclined people that could be described as 'bands' and it followed those groups were then bush bands.  The speaker disagreed; there were no bush bands before the Bushwhackers.  I asked for a definition of a "bush band", the speaker replied that a bush band must have a tea chest bass and a lagerphone and implied that the lagerphone had been devised by the Bushwhackers.  A strange definition, with a little ingenuity one could advance a novel definition of a car, and during a couple of weeks in the workshop modify a car to met the definition and then claim that you had built Australia's first car.  At this stage, I suspect much to the relief of the audience, the speaker and I let the matter rest.

Bush bands existed for at least 63 years prior to the Bushwhackers and in fact there was at least one bush band that functioned across the year 1952.  For structured debate we need a definition of bush band.  Let's run with a basic definition that a band is a group of two or more people, at least one of which plays an instrument, gathered together to make music intended for general entertainment.  "Bush" in a straightforward Australia sense means "out of the metropolitan area with a restricted access to resources" as in "after that experience he camped in the bush for a couple of weeks to unwind". 

The early bush bands did not identify themselves as "bush bands".  In the same period bands in Ireland did not identify themselves as "Irish bands" – it was self-evident.  By contrast there was no shortage of "Irish bands" playing in Melbourne in the 1970's in Melbourne clubs and pubs.  We may not find 19th century or early 20th century bands self-identifying as "bush bands" but we may find bands comprised of bush dwellers playing in the bush.  Perhaps this is the Bushwhackers contribution to bush bands formed post 1952 – the group demonstrated the marketing power of a recognized classification.

The firstists' claim contains within itself a contradiction.  We are told that the Bushwhackers was a traditionally sized group, playing tradition music on traditional instruments, yet, remarkably, it itself was not a traditional band but entirely something new.

The statement made by contributors to Wikipedia that "The band were(sic) unique in that they(sic) performed with traditional bush instruments"[8] substantiates the LFTB case most eloquently.

The historic existence of improvised dances is noted in the works of Henry Lawson (A Bush Dance, 1902) and Steele Rudd (Arthur Davis) (Kate's Wedding, 1899).  The story lines are similar.  The local concertina is found wanting and the night's dancing is only saved by the arrival of Jimmy Mears (and his fiddle) in the first instance and Jim Burke (and his accordion) in the second.  Unfortunately for the LFTB case a single instrument does not constitute a band.  It's easy to imagine that some form of percussion was improvised, but we have no evidence of that.

On the other hand, if we examine The Complete Adventures of Blinky Bill, Dorothy Wall 1939, we discover that when Blinky Bill and his mates attended the Rabbits' Party (definitely an informal bush affair) the band was substantial enough to be described as an orchestra and the dancing was initiated by the call "Take your partners for The Bunny Hug,"

The provenance of the song Brisbane Ladies (also known as Augathella Station) is well established.[6]  It was written by Saul Mendelson a storekeeper at Nanango prior to 1880.  The penultimate verse of the song is:

Sometimes the last line is presented as:

Someone was supplying music on a bush weathered instrument, either Robert Anderson or Henry Gunn.  We have agreed that a single person does not constitute a band, but perhaps on some occasion both Henry and Bob played.  Or maybe there was improvised percussion or an attendee sung along – then there would have been a bush band.

In 1900 Henry Lawson's collection of stories On the Track was published.  The opening "story" is written in the style of an mini autobiography and is cleary drawing from life.  A paragraph from the work reads.

The firstists argument requires that (figuratively speaking) the Bushwhackers walked out onto an empty stage.  This was not the case.  In October 2000 Peter Ellis published an extensive article "Harry McQueen, Castlemaine button-accordionist" in the international magazine "Musical Traditions".[3]  The material that Peter presents was obtained directly from Harry and follows his musical activity over a period of some 60 years.  The quotations that follow are drawn from that article.  The material presented represents only a small fraction of the article which is well worth reading in full.  Harry McQueen was born in 1910.

In the article Harry's bush credentials are established formally, "He started learning and practising at home, but his father unlike his grandfather, could not tolerate the noise, so Harry would go bush behind the rifle range to try out tunes."  After a considerable amount of practising, Harry started playing at local dances.  A couple of his mates ... told him to play "Daisy" for the Circular Waltz and "Ring the Bell Watchman", now known as "Click Go the Shears", for the Barn Dance.  Ironically "Click Go the Shears" was one of the first tunes played by the Bushwhackers decades later.  Peter continues, "Harry McQueen not only learnt his material from Bill McGlashan, but he attended other dances, in fact met his wife to be, Olive, in the Maxina in 1934."  Here we can gather a sense of the importance of dance in the minds of the interviewee and the interviewer.  Harry made the point to Peter that the introductory dance for the couple was the Maxina and Peter found the point significant enough to include in his article.  Further Pete writes, "[Harry McQueen] began to play for the Fryerstown dance in 1928 and continued there on a regular basis for nearly 61 years.  The Bushwhackers 5 years of activity was just a ship that passed in the night.

Michael Atherton's excellent book "A Coveted Possession: The Rise and Fall of the Piano in Australia"[4], contains some incidental comments on bush bands relevant to LFTB's hypotheses.  On page 41 is a simple acknowledgement of the existence of bush bands,  Writing in a 19th century context Michael observes: "Respectability was also maintained by what was played,  Hymns were considered the most proper music, not vulgar jigs and reels,  Yet we know that the piano was used in bush music bands and bush orchestras that played for dances".

At the beginning of the 20th century it seems that if you have a collection of travelling Australians you have the makings of an impromptu band,  "During World War 1 Australians carried flutes, harmonicas, guitars and accordions onto the battlefield"[page 111],  The ability of Australians to provide or improvise musical instruments was evident in World War II,  "Two days after internment at Selarang Camp a group of Australian POW's formed the Changi Concert Party,  At first the Concert Party put on simple Tivoli-style variety shows using the available instruments - guitars, piano accordions and saxophones,  Some members made their own instruments, including banjos, pot-lid cymbals, shakers and tea-chest bass drums"[page 135],  Incidentally, these last two instruments are interesting as one firstist I spoke with had suggested that the tea-chest bass and the shaker were part of the originality of the 1952 Bushwhackers band,  (The possible distinction between a "tea-chest bass drum" and a "tea chest bass" is noted, however. the usage of the tea-chest bass prior to 1952 is extensively recognized.)