Thomas Louis Buvelot Esson was born in Edinburgh then moved with his mother to Melbourne, Australia when he was 3.

For most of his childhood in Melbourne, Louis lived with his aunts and uncles, only visiting his mother during school holidays.

From 1904, Esson began publishing poetry in the Bulletin and later contributed articles to the Socialist.

Esson’s first full-length play, The Time is Not Yet Ripe, was staged in Melbourne in 1912.

In the 1920s, Esson was a co-founder of the Pioneer Players, a theatre company dedicated to the performance of Australian plays. Although the Pioneer Players survived only 4 years, Louis Esson is widely regarded as the ‘father of Australian drama’.