Education
From 1891 to 1894 one of the editors of the Sydney University student journal Hermes, to which he made numerous contributions.
From 1891 to 1894 one of the editors of the Sydney University student journal Hermes, to which he made numerous contributions.
Brereton tried a variety of occupations—schoolteacher, tea merchant, clerk in the New South Wales government statistician's office. At the same time he continued to write. Brereton remains an important figure in the development of Australian literature. His poetry was influenced by the ideas of mateship and egalitarianism prevailing amongst the literary bohemians at the turn of the twentieth century, but was also strongly marked by his reverence for the natural world and his views on the essential harmony of all living things.