The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Stephens, James Brunton
Stephens, James Brunton, is a native of Barrowstowness, Linlithgowshire, where he was born in 1835. He went to Queensland in 1866, and was engaged as a private tutor for some years. Subsequently he entered the service of the Queensland Education Department, and having held for some years the position of head teacher of the Ashgrove School, he was transferred to a clerkship in the Colonial Secretary's office, which he still retains. He has contributed in prose and in verse to The Queenslander, Australasian, and Melbourne Review, in which his fine blank-verse poem "Mute Discourse" first saw the light; and is regarded as the wittiest of Australian poets. "Convict Once," his most ambitious poem, was published by Macmillan, and "The Godolphin Arabian" and "Miscellaneous Poems" by Watson, Ferguson & Co., of Brisbane. He has also written two novelettes of Australian life, one of which entitled "A Hundred Pounds" was published by Samuel Mullen of Melbourne.