Tom Wills
Encyclopedia
Thomas Wentworth "Tom" Wills (19 August 1835 – 2 May 1880) was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n all-round sportsman, umpire, coach and administrator who is credited with being a catalyst towards the invention of Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

.

He was in 1859 a participant in meetings within days of each other which firstly founded the Melbourne Football Club
Melbourne Football Club
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....

 and then a few days later determined the first Laws of Australian Football
Laws of Australian football
The laws of Australian football describe the rules of the game of Australian rules football as they have evolved and adapted, with the same underlying core rules, since 1859....

. He also co-umpired one of the earliest known school football
English public school football games
During the early modern era students, former students and teachers at English public schools developed and wrote down the first codes of football, most notably the Eton College...

 matches in Australia.

Wills was a champion footballer and cricketer. On more than one occasion he was judged the longest drop kicker of a football in the Colony of Victoria. He was also a notable cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 player and, in 1866-67, assisted for a few months in the coaching of an Aboriginal cricket team. The following year some of those players were members of the first Australian cricket team to tour England.

Early life

Wills was born in 1835 near Gundagai, New South Wales
Gundagai, New South Wales
Gundagai is a town in New South Wales, Australia. Although a small town, Gundagai is a popular topic for writers and has become a representative icon of a typical Australian country town...

 to parents Horatio and Elizabeth, first of their nine children.

'The Argus' newspaper dated Saturday 12 March 1921 page 4 records the Horatio Wills
Horatio Wills
Horatio Spencer Howe Wills , or Horace Wills, was an Australian pastoralist and politician. Born in Sydney, the son of a convict sent to Australia for highway robbery, Wills is notable as being involved in several events in Australian history...

 family being at Burra Burra Gundagai till around 1840. In November 1840, Tom moved with his parents and the rest of his family, to Lexington, a 125000 acres (505.9 km²) property in the Ararat
Ararat, Victoria
Ararat is a city in south-west Victoria, Australia, about west of Melbourne, on the Western Highway on the eastern slopes of the Ararat Hills and Cemetery Creek valley between Victoria's Western District and the Wimmera...

 District in western Victoria he was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne
Scotch College, Melbourne
Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....

 for two years.

There is no evidence that Wills played Marn Grook
Marn Grook
Marn Grook , literally meaning "Game ball", is a collective name given to a number of traditional Indigenous Australian recreational pastimes believed to have been played at gatherings and celebrations of up to 50 players. It is often confused with a separate indigenous game resembling Association...

, an Aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 game alleged to have similar rules to the first football
Football
Football may refer to one of a number of team sports which all involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just "football" or "soccer"...

 codes with members of a nearby community as a boy; however, the connection may have had some influence. He spoke the language of the people with whom he grew up, the Djab wurrung
Djab Wurrung
The Djab wurrung people are Indigenous Australians who occupy the volcanic plains of central Victoria from the Mount William Range of Gariwerd in the west to the Pyrenees range in the east encompassing the Wimmera River flowing north and the headwaters of the Hopkins River flowing south. The towns...

, knew their dances, and the first games he played were with local
Aboriginal children. Due to his family's extensive interaction with local aborigines, it is assumed that he would have at the very least seen the game being played and some believe this may have had an influence on his rules for Australian Football.

Time in England

In 1850, aged fourteen, Wills was sent by his father to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 to attend the famous Rugby School
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...

. At school he played both rugby football
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

 and cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, excelling at both sports. He was noted as an attacking rugby player, who would dodge and weave opponents. He was also the team's dedicated kicker, noted for his long and accurate shots at goal.

Wills was a tall teenager and grew quickly. By 16 at 174.8 cm (5' 8.8") he was already taller than his father.

After Rugby, Wills attended Cambridge University, where he played cricket, notably in the Cambridge XI in the Varsity Match
The University Match (cricket)
The University Match in a cricketing context is generally understood to refer to the annual fixture between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club...

. He was listed in Bells Sporting Life
Bell's Life in London
Bell's Life in London, and Sporting Chronicle was a British weekly sporting paper published as a pink broadsheet between 1822 and 1886.Bell's Life was founded by Robert Bell, a London printer-publisher....

 as being one of the most promising young cricketers in England.

Cricket career

On his return to Melbourne near the end of December 1856 at the age of twenty-one he became one of Victoria's best cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

ers, representing the colony in intercolonial cricket matches against New South Wales, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

 and Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

.

Wills regularly commuted between his father's property in Geelong and Melbourne between 1856 to 1859.

Wills was elected secretary of the MCC in 1857-58. However the following year he had a falling out with the club and left for a rival club, Richmond. The result was a lasting tension between both parties. The ill feeling was heightened by an incident during a match while Wills was playing for Richmond, in which he became involved in fist fights with some of its members.

Wills captained Victoria in 1862.

Wills was the grandson of a man sent to Sydney from England for highway robbery, and this convict heritage had a strong bearing on his life. Wills was a strong advocate for the rights of free settlers and "emancipated convict
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...

s" (those who had proven their worth to society).
The Melbourne Cricket Club
Melbourne Cricket Club
The Melbourne Cricket Club is a sporting club based in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1838 and is regarded as the oldest sporting club in Australia....

, like many institutions of high society, was known to discriminate against the "Convict Stain". An achievement of his advocacy, was his own admission as a high-ranking member of the MCC, despite his convict
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...

 heritage.

Wills was twice called for throwing by different umpires during cricket matches in 1872.

Football

Some historians claim that Wills was instrumental in setting up at least six "football" clubs in Geelong before his famous letter dated 10 July 1858 to Bell's Life in Victoria (a Melbourne-based sporting publication) in an attempt to stimulate interest in the athletic games.

On 7 August 1858, Wills was one of the umpires at a match between Scotch College
Scotch College, Melbourne
Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....

 and Melbourne Grammar School
Melbourne Grammar School
Melbourne Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, day and boarding school predominantly for boys, located in South Yarra and Caulfield, suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....

, also in the Richmond Paddock. Played as a 40 per side contest, the game is claimed by some as the first match of Australian football. A statue commemorating this event which features Wills as umpire was erected at the MCC members' entry of the MCG. Discussing the football played in 1858, a contemporary source noted that "exceptions were taken last year to some of the Rugby regulations."

On 17 May 1859, Wills chaired a meeting to incorporate the Melbourne Football Club
Melbourne Football Club
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....

 in which the club's rules (later the Laws of Australian Football
Laws of Australian football
The laws of Australian football describe the rules of the game of Australian rules football as they have evolved and adapted, with the same underlying core rules, since 1859....

) were written down for the first time. While Wills was a fan of the rugby rules, his intentions were clear that he favoured rules that suited drier and harder Australian fields. His cousin H. C. A Harrison later claimed that he had made the declaration (which subsequently became legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

 although Harrison may not have actually been there to witness) that "We shall have a game of our own".

During that year, he was also heavily involved in the formation of the Melbourne Football Club
Melbourne Football Club
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....

. The club is still in existence today, playing in the Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...

.

Wills continued his involvement with football as player and administrator into the 1860s. His time at Rugby was influential in his attempt to introduce a rugby-style cross-bar into the sport in 1865. Wills was also ahead of his time. In the early years of football, according to an a column by William Hammersley
William Hammersley
William Josiah Sumner Hammersley was a prominent sports journalist for Bell's Life in Victoria and later The Australasian , one of the four men credited with setting down the original rules of the Australian rules football.-Life:He was educated at Aldenham School...

, Wills pushed for the oval ball to be used in favour of the round ball.

In a match between Geelong and Ballarat Wills became the first captain coach to use the Australian rules football tactic of flooding
Flooding (Australian football)
Flooding is a tactic used in the sport of Australian rules football. It involves the coach releasing players in the forward line from their set positions and directing them to the opposition forward area, congesting the area and making it more difficult for the opposition to score. It is commonly...

. Facing a large loss against a stronger team, he ordered all players to stack the backline to the boos of fans a tactic later used by rival Melbourne.

In 1874 he ceased playing football, having for much of the previous decade been a member of the Geelong
Geelong Football Club
The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed The Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club, named after and based in the city of Geelong, playing in the Australian Football League . The club has been the VFL/AFL premiers nine times, with a record equalling 3 in the AFL era. Geelong has also...

 team.

Personal life

In 1861 Tom's father Horatio Wills
Horatio Wills
Horatio Spencer Howe Wills , or Horace Wills, was an Australian pastoralist and politician. Born in Sydney, the son of a convict sent to Australia for highway robbery, Wills is notable as being involved in several events in Australian history...

 emigrated north to Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

 where they took up a holding at Cullin-La-Ringo in the Nogoa region about two hundred miles from Rockhampton
Rockhampton, Queensland
Rockhampton is a city and local government area in Queensland, Australia. The city lies on the Fitzroy River, approximately from the river mouth, and some north of the state capital, Brisbane....

. They had only been on the holding for three weeks when they were attacked by a party of Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 who killed nineteen of the group, including Tom's father. Tom was away from the property at the time, having been sent to a neighbouring property, about two days ride away, for supplies.

Wills returned to Victoria where he married Sarah Theresa Barbor in 1867 in Church of England, Castlemaine, Victoria
Castlemaine, Victoria
Castlemaine is a city in Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region of Victoria about 120 kilometres northwest by road from Melbourne, and about 40 kilometres from the major provincial centre of Bendigo. It is the administrative and economic centre of the Shire of Mount Alexander. The...

. He lived in several locations including South Melbourne
South Melbourne, Victoria
South Melbourne is an inner city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Port Phillip and Melbourne...

 where he developed a reputation for not paying debts, though he continued to financially support local cricket and football teams. In his later years living in Heidelberg
Heidelberg, Victoria
Heidelberg is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 11 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Banyule....

, Wills was notorious for being an alcoholic (which many attribute to the death of his father), spent time in Kew Lunatic Asylum
Kew Asylum
Kew Lunatic Asylum is a decommissioned psychiatric hospital located between Princess Street and Yarra Boulevard in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Operational from 1871 to 1988, Kew was one of the largest asylums ever built in Australia. Later known as Willsmere, the complex of buildings...

 confessing night terrors of aborigines attacking his property. Wills was admitted to the Royal Melbourne Hospital
Royal Melbourne Hospital
The Royal Melbourne Hospital , located in Parkville, Victoria an inner suburb of Melbourne is one of Australia’s leading public hospitals. It is a major teaching hospital for tertiary health care with a reputation in clinical research...

 at the age of 44 suffering from extreme alcoholism. Delusional from induced alcohol withdrawal, Wills escaped from the hospital on 1 May 1880, returned home and the next day stabbed himself in the heart to death with a pair of scissors
Scissors
Scissors are hand-operated cutting instruments. They consist of a pair of metal blades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles opposite to the pivot are closed. Scissors are used for cutting various thin materials, such as paper, cardboard, metal foil, thin...

 in his Heidelberg home.

In memoriam

In 1998, Wills was honoured by a monument in Moyston
Moyston, Victoria
Moyston is a town in the Western District region of Victoria, Australia, near the Grampians mountain range. The town is located in the Rural City of Ararat Local Government Area, north west of the state capital, Melbourne...

, his home town, which includes a pavilion and historical storyboard based on information supplied by historian Col Hutchison
Col Hutchison
Colin "Col" Hutchison is a veteran statistician, most notably in the Victorian/Australian Football League in the sport of Australian rules football...

. The storyboard recognises the contribution of Marn Grook to the game of Australian football.

There is a painting of Tom Wills in the foyer of the Geelong Football Club at Kardinia Park in Geelong.

Wills is honoured with a sculpture at the MCG by Louis Laumen erected in 2002.
The sculpture reads that Wills:

"Did more than any other person – as footballer and umpire, co-writer of the rules and promoter of the game – to develop Australian Football during its first decade."


A room in the Great Southern Stand, known as the Tom Wills Room, reserved for corporate functions is also named after him.

In 2008, Round 19 of the AFL season was named Tom Wills Round to celebrate 150 years of Australian Football and featured a curtain raiser at the MCG between Scotch and Melbourne Grammar to mark the match which Wills famously umpired.

For many years, Wills role in the birth of Australian Football was played down by MCC officials who instead credited most of this to his cousin (and also brother in-law), H. C. A. Harrison, and some believe this to be due Harrison's apparently more wholesome character. As the MCC has become more liberal in its attitudes, and Australians generally embrace convict heritage, Wills contribution has been recognised and acknowledged.

An interchange of the Monash
Monash Freeway
Monash Freeway is an urban freeway in Victoria, Australia linking Melbourne's CBD to its southeastern suburbs and the Gippsland region. The entire stretch of the Monash Freeway bears the designation...

 and EastLink Melbourne metropolitan freeways is named the Tom Wills Interchange.

The Wills cup, the first national competition as part of the Australian Football League pre-season competition
Australian Football League pre-season competition
The Australian Football League pre-season competition, which is known at present as the NAB Cup, is a competition held before the beginning of the Australian Football League premiership season...

 was not named after Tom Wills but the cigarette company W. D. & H. O. Wills.

External links

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