History of Australia (1851–1900) drovers, stockmen and shearers were popular during the 19th century. Convict and bushranger verses often railed against government tyranny. Classic bush songs on such themes include: The Wild Colonial Boy, Click Go The Shears, The Dying Stockman and Moreton Bay. For much of its history, Australia's bush music belonged to an oral and folkloric tradition, and was only later published in print in volumes such as Banjo Paterson's "Old Bush Songs", in the 1890s. The lyrics of Waltzing Matilda, often regarded as Australia's unofficial National anthem, and a quintessential early Australian country music song were composed by the poet Banjo
Waltzing Matilda or recordings of bush ballads include anything to suggest it preceded Paterson. Meanwhile, handwritten manuscripts from the time the song originated indicate the song's origins with Paterson and Christina Macpherson, as do their own recollections and other pieces of evidence. There has been speculation about the relationship "Waltzing Matilda" bears to an English song, "The Bold Fusilier" (also known as "Marching through Rochester", referring to Rochester in Kent and the Duke of Marlborough), a song sung to the same tune and dated by some back to the 18th century but first printed in 1900. There is, however, no documentary proof