Tom Wills - Return To Melbourne

Return To Melbourne

Wills returned to Victoria and in 1866 travelled inland to the colony's Wimmera region where he coached the first Aboriginal cricket team. Their language was similar enough to that of the Djab wurrung, allowing Wills to communicate with them without using English. Wills captained the team against the MCC at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day, 1866, in front of 10,000 specatators. The team, called the Australian Native XI, played throughout Victoria and New South Wales. A few members of the side were later included in the other Aboriginal team which toured England in 1868. Wills was accused of introducing the Aboriginal players to alcohol, which led to illnesses and deaths. Disillusioned, Wills had left the Native XI by April 1867.

Wills married Sarah Theresa Barbor in 1867 in the Church of England, Castlemaine, Victoria. He lived in several locations including South 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, Wills' alcoholism worsened (which many attribute to the death of his father), and spent time in the Kew Lunatic Asylum. He experienced night terrors of aborigines attacking his property and other symptoms indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder. Wills was admitted to the Melbourne Hospital at the age of 44 suffering from extreme alcoholism. Delusional from induced alcohol withdrawal, Wills absconded from the hospital's psychiatric ward on 1 May 1880, returned home and the next day killed himself by stabbing a pair of scissors into his heart three times. He was buried in an unmarked grave at Warringal Cemetery in Heidelberg. Only six people, and no relatives, attended his private funeral. His death certificate declared that his parents were "Unknown".