Horatio Wills
Horatio Wills | |
|---|---|
 Horatio Wills circa 1850s | |
| Born | Horatio Spencer Howe Wills 5 October 1811 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 17 October 1861 (aged 50) Cullin-la-ringo, Queensland, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation(s) | pastoralist, politician |
Horatio Spencer Howe Wills (5 October 1811 – 17 October 1861)[1] was an Australian pastoralist and politician. Born in Sydney, the son of a convict transported to Australia for highway robbery, Wills worked as a printer and editor for Australia's first newspaper, The Sydney Gazette, before founding his own journal, The Currency Lad, in 1832. In it, he promoted the interests of "currency lads and lasses" (native-born Australians) and argued for a form of Australian republicanism, prefiguring the nationalist attitudes of the late 19th century.[2] He was also the father of Tom Wills, Australia's first great cricketer and inventor of Australian rules football.
In the late 1830s, Wills took up pastoralism and overlanded with his family to the Grampians region of the Port Phillip District (now the state of Victoria). Wills was one of the first settlers in the area, and purchased a 125,000-acre (510 km2) property named Lexington near Moyston. He built a house on the property; completed in 1845, it still exists and is now heritage-listed. While at Lexington he is credited as having named nearby Mount Ararat, from which the city of Ararat takes its name. He hired aborigines as station hands and harvesters on his property.
In 1852, Wills sold Lexington and moved to Belle Vue in Geelong. Wills was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council for Grant on 10 January 1855;[1][3] and was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for South Grant in November 1856, a position he held until August 1859.[1]
In 1861, Horatio moved north to Queensland, at Cullin-La-Ringo in the Nogoa region near Rockhampton. Less than three weeks later, Wills was murdered by aborigines, along with 18 of his employ at the Cullin-la-ringo massacre, 17 October 1861; the biggest massacre of whites by Aboriginal people in Australian history.
Sources
- Sayers, C. E. (1967). "Wills, Horatio Spencer Howe (1811–1861)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
- ^ a b c "Wills, Horatio Spencer Howe". Re-Member: a database of all Victorian MPs since 1851. Parliament of Victoria. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
- ^ McKenna, Mark (1996). The Captive Republic: A History of Republicanism in Australia 1788–1996. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57618-5. pp. 23–25.
- ^ Sweetman, Edward (1920). Constitutional Development of Victoria, 1851-6. Whitcombe & Tombs Limited. p. 180. Retrieved 19 August 2014.
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