Tom Wills: His Spectacular Rise and Tragic Fall

I first came across the name of Tom Wills in a short article on the origins of Australian Rules football. Tom Wills had been bequeathed a lavish talent for the playing of games - he played cricket with virtuosity, challenging the constraints of that game, and was credited, more than any other, with creating the game of Australian Rules football. Towards the end of the article, my eyes settled upon a single line: Tom Wills had stabbed himself in the heart. In the early afternoon of a Melbourne day in 1880 he had committed suicide.

Curious about Wills, I wanted to know why his life ended that way - my starting point was his suicide. I went to the Mitchell Library in Sydney and searched the Melbourne newspapers for his obituaries. These gave me the first insights into his life. Wills was an alcoholic and his behaviour in the hours before his suicide suggested that he had been hallucinating. On the day before his death, 1 May 1880, Wills had been taken to the Melbourne Hospital and offered refuge, but had somehow managed to leave hospital and return home, where he took his life. I couldn’t imagine anyone being allowed to leave hospital in that state. The only way to know how and why he left hospital was to locate his medical notes. In hope, more than belief, that such records still existed, I rang the Royal Melbourne Hospital, long since made imperial. The boxes of patient records from 1880 had, indeed, been stored at the hospital and kept in a backroom. When I arrived at the hospital, I was directed to a room overfilled with heavy, unopened cardboard boxes. Inside each box were leather bound volumes of doctors’ admission notes from the nineteenth century. The boxes were not organised in any particular manner - I would have to open each one and then each bound Tom Wills, c. 1857 volume of medical notes to find Tom’s admission.

For five hours I peered silently into the lives of patients admitted to the Melbourne Hospital until, without warning, I found the notes I had travelled 1000 kilometres to discover. Hasty and to the point, they recorded the essence of Wills’ mind as it unravelled: the telltale hallucinations and delusions of alcohol withdrawal, recognisable and unchanged across the century. At 5 p.m. Tom Wills had ‘absconded’ from the Melbourne Hospital. The next day he was dead.

This single archival discovery suggested that other discoveries might be made, but before I delved further I needed to know more about my man. This did not take long. Standard texts on the history of Australian sport painted what was known of his life. Born in 1835, Wills had been despatched by his father to England in 1850 to study at Rugby School. His father, Horatio Wills, was a man of hefty girth and even heftier ambitions for his son. Tom excelled at Rugby School in sports; returning to Melbourne in 1856 he became the transcendent cricketer in the colony of Victoria.

A sporting libertine, he was courted by clubs and colonies throughout Australia. It was a safe bet for the average punter to wage a shilling on any team captained by T.W. Wills and, like a medieval prince swinging a cricket bat, he travelled the country holding court on fields of his choosing.

In 1859 Tom Wills, along with three other men, sat down in the back room of a Melbourne pub and penned what has become the most important and original document in Australian sporting history. The ten rules they wrote established the basis of Australian Rules football.

As I recorded what was known of Wills’ life, it became clear that there were many gaps in his history. To research these gaps, I sent out one enquiry after another to locate archives in an attempt to unlock the secrets of his life. Letters, photographs and assorted archives were collected from across five countries; items were found in unexpected places. Of all the material I unearthed, nothing was more unexpected than finding Tom’s schoolbooks from Rugby School. The mere fact that they had survived for over 150 years without any attempt at preservation was astonishing enough but it was where I found them that was most incongruous.

While searching for material on Tom Wills I visited Minerva Creek, a cattle property near Springsure, Central Queensland. The cattle station was run and owned by another Tom Wills, a descendant of the Wills family. The Tom I met lived in a modest bungalow on a property spanning 10 000 acres; nearby stood the original homestead where his mother lived. In the early evening, about 6 p.m., I was led into an old outhouse where I started looking at priceless letters written by Tom Wills 150 years ago. My Queensland host told me that the letters had been stored under the homestead for years. I picked up the letters, sat down on a bench, and spread them out on the vast rough-hewn table under a lamp. My only companions were the large winged insects that spun about the lamp and a seemingly endless supply of beer. I sat for hours on a hot Queensland night, with a can of XXXX at my elbow, reading the letters. To save paper, writers of the period often completed a letter in their normal horizontal script then turned the letter 90 degrees and wrote at right angles on top of the original letter. Some of the letters were torn and dates and phrases were missing at crucial points. Deciphering the letters took time. Not all the letters were in one piece so I moved the pieces, like tectonic plates, trying to find which piece went with which letter. When I looked at my watch it was four o’clock in the morning.

Later that morning Tom took me over to the homestead where his elderly mother lived. The homestead had seen finer days. It was dark inside despite the bursting Queensland sun. Dust covered the furniture and just about everything else I could see. While chatting to Tom’s mother I noticed an old bookshelf in a corner, the kind you might see in a second-hand bookshop, draped with a torn curtain. I slowly drew back the curtain to reveal a line of books embalmed by the dust of Central Queensland. A puff of dust dispersed into the air and into my nostrils as I removed one book, A History of Greece. Written on the inside cover was:

T. Wills,
C. Evans,
Rugby,
Warwickshire
March 14th, 1854

I could hardly believe what I was holding: I had found Tom’s schoolbooks from Rugby. The pages of the book were difficult to prise apart and in some places were corrugated and stuck fast by water damage. Managing to free one page I turned it with a hesitant touch, but small flakes of paper, like the sloughing of skin, broke off and fluttered to the table. These textbooks had miraculously survived, connecting two alien worlds separated by 150 years and over 16 000 kilometres. From the black soil plans of outback Queensland I had my first glimpse of Tom Wills as a boy in England on the playing fields of Rugby.

I travelled to Rugby School looking for evidence of Tom’s time there and amongst boxes of the boys’ letters I came across a diary in which he kept an account of his cricket matches. In 1855, captaining his cricket team, Tom wrote of an incident thattold me a great deal about his singlemindedness. Batting, he required ten runs to complete a century. Bent over his bat, Tom waited for the next ball. The bowler approached. The impertinent ball dipped and clipped his bat before it safely skidded into his legs. Or, so at least thought Tom Wills. Mr Soames, the Umpire, thought otherwise -out l.b.w. That evening, when Tom Wills sat down to write his report of the game, he underscored with some vigour his assessment of Mr
Soames. Everything that mattered to Tom was frozen in the instant that the ball had hit his legs, waiting for the umpire’s decision. Never mind that, in the previous few months, the school had been flushed with scarlet fever - a fourteen-year-old boy lay near death; another lad had died. No, he never penned his private thoughts on these matters. Sport occupied each moment of his thinking. He was an unusual mix - thin-skinned and self-centred, yet generous to the less gifted in his team. Peculiar was the word for Tom Wills; just about everyone said so.

As I read his personal letters I could only feel intense affection for Tom Wills. His thoughts were exhilarating and infectious; his punning and disregard for the conventions of sentence structure bordered on the thought disordered. It was hard not to love a man whose letters could so gloriously mock himself and who immortalised Melbourne, in one of his manic letters:

‘Everything is very dull here, but people are kept alive by people getting shot at in the streets.’

Tactless, he unerringly spoke his mind. A man of egalitarian cut, Wills always sided with the underdog. A rapscallion for the ages, he was not beholden to the conventions of the day; his antics on the field were forgiven - his ‘brain snaps’ overlooked. His taste for colonial beer needed no encouragement; alcohol was a balm for his troubled spirit.

Wills emerged from his Rugby School chrysalis and in 1856, as a 21-year-old, returned home to the harsh Australian sun. Never did a more beautiful athlete step upon the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Tom Wills was an exotic intrusion into a dull world. His life’s work was about to begin. On the afternoon I discovered the medical notes that recorded the final hours of the life of Tom Wills, I felt like I’d unearthed the remains of an Australian Titanic. Here was our great sportsman – an expansive and uncharted life – led by an unknown hand to a seemingly inevitable end.

Part One

1835–1862

What a son recalls of his father’s love is often unsaid in the life of a man. When
Horatio Wills pondered the head of his infant son, he would have considered that its size and shape were of importance. From its contours he indeed expressed optimism. Horatio thought the science of phrenology was worthy of notice,
even in the movable bones that curved their way around his baby’s head. With these considerations in mind, Horatio poured the lessons from his own life into the grasping hands of his infant son.

AUGUST 1835–APRIL 1840

Tom Wills was born on 19 August 1835, on a sheep run on the Molonglo River, 180 miles southwest of Sydney. The first child of Elizabeth and Horatio, Tom lived his first four years on the plains next to the river.

The parents of Tom Wills were descended from convicts. Tom’s mother, Elizabeth, was born to Michael Wyre and Jane Wallace, both convicts from Ireland who were transported to the penal colony of New South Wales for seven years. Wyre and Wallace married on 11 April 1815 at St John’s Church, Parramatta, 15 miles inland from Sydney. Elizabeth was the middle of their three girls. When Michael Wyre accidentally drowned in 1823, all three girls were admitted to the Female Orphan Asylum, Parramatta. Elizabeth was recorded in the admission register as being six years old and her surname was recorded as McGuire, the name she would keep until she married.

The Female Orphan Asylum was established to civilise the colony of New South Wales. Girls came from all segments of the colony: free settlers, convicts and Aborigines. Looking up from the stone jetty on the Parramatta River, the girls could see a path that led from the river, rising along a hill towards the front entrance of the three-storey asylum. Outside the asylum walls were six acres of gardens in which grew flowers, fruit and vegetables for the girls’ pleasure and sustenance. Routine and order marked days at the asylum. Mornings were devoted to reading, writing and needlework and after lunch to domestic instruction. Each morning and night the girls were mustered for Bible readings and prayer and on Sundays they were taken by boat to St John’s Anglican Church for worship.

At the age of twelve or thirteen most girls were apprenticed out, either into homes in the colony or to work as servants within the school. After fi ve years, Elizabeth and her older sister Catherine were discharged from the school on 23 June 1828 and were apprenticed as servants within the school.

Five years later, Elizabeth entered Mrs Jane McGillivray’s Boarding School for ‘a select and limited number of young Ladies, whose morals, comforts and education shall be attended to with fidelity’. Elizabeth’s handwriting book from this year has survived:

Elizabeth McGuire, 15 years old
January 29th 1833

The art of Writing is one of the most necessary acquirements and greatest blessings that mankind can enjoy Ignorance and impudence are generally twins Careless habits retard our improvement generally Do not rashly that which you may repent Humility, that low sweet root, from which all Heavenly virtues shoot Modesty that unfolding ornament, adorned the maid Graceful manners distinguish the well bred Miss McGuire presents her kind compliments to Miss Thomson and requests the favor of Miss T’s interesting company to Tea this evening Indolence saps at the root of virtue and happiness Let no one know your secret sentiments be discreet Mildness is the proper characteristic of woman Those who despise learning are unworthy of it Useful employment produces happiness Endeavour to acquire a graceful address Knowledge cannot be prized too highly Improve the opportunities given you now True Philosophy is only found in Religion Scorn falsehood as the greatest meanness Be cautious how you give pain to those who love you.

Elizabeth left Mrs McGillivray’s and on 2 December 1833 married Horatio Wills, editor of the Sydney Gazette, after a courtship of eighteen months. She was, as far as can be reckoned, sixteen years old when she married.

From Elizabeth’s writing book, 1833 Elizabeth at the time of her marriage

Horatio Wills was born in 1811, the son of a convict. Or more correctly, Horatio was the son of a dead convict – five months before Horatio was born his father, Edward Wills, died in the family home on George Street, Sydney. The obituary in the Sydney Gazette described Edward as a man of respectability and integrity. But it had not always been so.

Edward Wills had committed robbery on the King’s Highway in England and was sentenced ‘to be Hanged by the neck until he be Dead’. The sentence was commuted to transportation for life to the colony of New South Wales and he arrived at Botany Bay on 26 July 1799, aboard the Hillsborough, with his wife and daughter. Although Edward and Sarah survived the voyage, nearly one hundred convicts did not: typhoid and cruelty saw to that. Edward Wills received a conditional pardon in June 1803 and a full pardon in 1810; soon, he and his wife Sarah were merchants of wealth and standing in Sydney. He died, only thirty-two years old, leaving five children and his wife four months pregnant with Horatio.

Sarah Wills remarried the next year. Her new husband was George Howe, owner, printer and editor of Australia’s first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette. George died in 1821, followed two years later by Sarah. Horatio’s older siblings, in particular the urbane and wise Thomas, cared for and mentored the young boy.

Horatio was apprenticed to George Howe’s son, Robert, who had taken over the running of the Sydney Gazette. When he was little more than fifteen years old, Horatio ran away from work. Robert Howe immediately advertised in the Sydney Gazette to locate him; six months later he was back as an apprentice. Horatio and his older stepbrother quarrelled repeatedly; it soon came to a head when Horatio, threatened with a whipping, brawled with Robert Howe. Horatio was struck over the eye; ‘a severe wound’. Some months later, Horatio again fought with Robert Howe and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Always there for his younger brother, Thomas
Wills arranged for William Charles Wentworth to defend Horatio when the impetuous adolescent returned to Sydney. Wentworth was one of the best-known barristers in the colony; however the magistrate was unmoved by Horatio’s stories and ordered him to return to the Gazette offi ce as an apprentice with the advice: ‘You do not appear to have shown that subordination which an apprentice ought to do.’ At sixteen, Horatio’s personality was set. He was adventurous, even reckless, and had a temper, and he needed little material comfort to survive in life.

When his stepbrother died the following year, Horatio, released from the favoured son servitude, continued to work at the Gazette, becoming the editor and printer. On the verge of turning twenty-one, Horatio wrote to his brother-in-law, Assistant Surgeon to the Colony, Dr William Redfern. Horatio had met Elizabeth not long before and seemed determined to marry and live a more stable life - a life also with ambition. Redfern replied on 31 October 1832:

My dear Horace,
I had the pleasure of receiving your letter . . . and rejoice to hear that you have sown ‘all your wild oats’ and that you are determined to become a sensible, steady, clever fellow. To become so only requires resolution. Stick close to your studies and the rest will be sure to follow. If you go on as you promise to do, you will be a credit to yourself, an honor to your relations, and a benefit to mankind. Persevere!

Horatio anguished over his limited formal education and was driven to pursue knowledge to compensate for what he felt he had been deprived of as a young man. It was not just a personal desire for self-learning - he advocated that colonists advanced themselves through science and literature. Before he turned twenty-one, Horatio established his own newspaper, the Currency Lad, and sought subscriptions ‘to promote the cause of Literature in this Colony’ and ‘for the purpose of establishing a Public Library’. The library, he said, would be open to all free men, freed convict or free settler. There was to be no division among men. He believed a man should receive rewards in accordance with his abilities and industry. Horatio bristled with anger towards those born overseas who looked down upon native-born Australians, and wrote in the Currency Lad: ‘Look, Australians, to the high-salaried foreigners around you! Behold those men lolling in their coaches - rioting in the sweat of your brow . . . we were not made for slaves!’ But like many native-born Australians he looked overseas, particularly England, for advancement in culture and business.

Horatio was well connected in Sydney and seemed to have every reason to remain there, but he and his young wife left to take up a sheep station, Burra Burra, on the Molonglo Plains next to the Molonglo River. Burra Burra rested on a bedrock of limestone and shale; in all directions grey-white outcrops of stone, like roughened shafts of bone, broke through the soil. It was a hard land for a birth. Seventeen months after Tom was born, he was baptised Thomas Wentworth Wills in the Parish of St Andrew’s, Sydney. Horatio and Elizabeth named their first-born after Horatio’s much-loved and respected brother, Thomas. His second name, Wentworth, was an unmistakable acknowledgement to William Charles Wentworth, the Cambridge-educated barrister who defended Horatio in court against Robert Howe. Wentworth - the son of the colony’s chief surgeon and of a convict woman - had the qualities that Horatio valued and desired for his son: he was a statesman, explorer and fighter for the rights of the Australian born.

Life on the Molonglo Plains offered little comfort. In January 1839, soon after one of Elizabeth’s several miscarriages, Tom fell sick - ‘poor little Tom was so dangerously ill’ that Horatio and Elizabeth ‘almost despaired of his recovery’. Tom survived. He had been a precious child before his illness, but now he was even more so. The uncertainty of further children for Horatio and Elizabeth coupled with Tom’s recovery from illness deepened the bond between mother, father and child. In Horatio’s eyes, this son whom providence had let live would have every advantage that Horatio had been denied. Most importantly, Tom would have a father.

In late April 1840, Horatio, Elizabeth, and four-year-old Tom left the Molonglo River and overlanded south to the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.

Extract published courtesy of Allen & Unwin
© Greg de Moore