Jack Moses

Who was Jack Moses?

Jack Moses was an Australian outback bush poet who wrote the poems "Bullocky Bill" and "The Dog Sat on the Tuckerbox" and many other famous verses from which the well-known Dog on the Tuckerbox monument and the Nine and Five Mile legend of Gundagai were inspired.

Moses' poems were considered by Gundagai Shire Council to be of extreme significance as they immortalised the historic Australian town of Gundagai and influenced the famous Australian iconic monument, the Dog on the Tuckerbox, five miles from Gundagai, to come into being. A street was named in Moses' honour in Gundagai, 'Jack Moses Street'. In his publisher's note in Jack Moses' "Nine Miles from Gundagai", the publisher quoted Frank Morton saying in 1923 that he liked Moses' poems as they "dealt with the interests of real Australian bush people in a truthful, non-gloomy manner."

Jack Moses remained a prominent figure in country shows throughout New South Wales and at smoke concerts where he recited his own poems and told stories of the bush. He was a whisky salesman, and an enthusiastic all-year swimmer at Bondi.