The death of Tom Wills
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It will, doubtless, be a matter of extreme regret to all cricketers throughout the colony to learn that Mr Thomas Wills, more generally known as Tommy Wills, is no more, he having died at his house at Heidelberg on Sunday afternoon. It appears (states the Telegraph) that the deceased for some time past has been suffering from low spirits, induced, it is alleged, by heavy drinking. From information to hand, it appears that Wills, whose condition latterly had been so precarious as to warrant his being placed under the care of a male attendant, was on Sunday left by the man in the care of his wife while he went to his dinner. On his return to his duties the man ascertained that Wills, during his temporary absence, has possessed himself of a pair of scissors, with which he stabbed himself, inflicting three wounds on the left breast, immediately in the region of the heart, which organ probably was punctured with the blades of the scissors. The unfortunate man appeared to suffer but little after the mortal injuries had been inflicted, but in a very few moments he succumbed, and breathed his last. Mrs Wills, and also a female neighbor named Jennie McKewan, were in the room when the wretched man committed self-slaughter, but their efforts were ineffectual in endeavoring to wrest the weapon from the hands of the poor fellow. At the time of his death Mr. Wills was about 45 years of age.
Our Melbourne correspondent, writing yesterday, says:—The news of the death of Tom Wills, which reached town after midnight yesterday, was received with surprise and regret by cricketers, for the veteran—although he has been a stranger to the cricket field of late—was by no means an old man. People who know anything of the history of Victorian cricket will not require to be reminded of the good service which poor Wills rendered the game in the past, and many players will acknowledge that much of the proficiency is due to the skilful coaching which they have received at his hands.
The Herald of last night says:—The sad ending of Mr T.W. Wills, the veteran cricketer, as reported in this morning's papers, will strike an unpleasant chord in cricketing, as in many other circles. "Tommy" Wills was so identified with the early history of cricket in Victoria, that his name had become a household word, not only with cricketers, but with the public generally, who in those times, almost to an individual, were deeply interested in the results of our early intercolonial contests on the green sward. It is a matter of history how New South Wales, after winning the first two matches, encountered a long series of defeats, and out of fourteen matches only conquered twice.
With the early successes of this colony Tommy was perhaps more nearly associated than any other man. We find his name first appearing in the Victorian Eleven in the second Intercolonial match, played in 1857; so that it is now twenty-three years since the man whose unhappy death is now fresh in the public mind appeared, then almost a youth, with active frame and bright hopes, as one of the representatives of Victoria in the cricket field. Tommy had learnt his cricket and football up to that time at Rugby, but his first attempt with the bat in an Intercolonial match was a failure. With the ball, however, he played sad havoc among the New South Wales batsmen. Victoria was defeated that year, but then came a long list of Victorian victories, with Wills figuring brilliantly, not only with the ball, but also with the bat.
Tommy Wills in those halcyon days of success was a public favorite of the most pronounced type. Budding cricketers thought it a high honor indeed to obtain recognition from the hero of the hour. Staid old fogies, who had perhaps in their younger days been engaged in the Varsity or public schools or country matches at home, delighted to grasp his hand, slap him on the back, and congratulate him on his achievements. Unhappily, these congratulations too often assumed the shape of about the most ill-judged kindness that could have been offered to one of Tommy's temperament. The sad effects of this dangerous popularity are now recorded.
The great fault of Wills was that he had not the moral courage to say 'No'. He was naturally kind and genial, and fond of lively company. Altogether, he played in twelve intercolonial matches, viz., those in 1857, 1S58, 1859, 1860, 1863, 1865, 1867, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, and 1876, and of these, the only matches won by New South Wales were those in 1857, 1863, and 1876. In those days Wills was indeed a tower of strength to his colony at the wickets as a bowler, or in the field. In the early days his most prominent contemporaries were Jerry Bryant, Gid Elliott, Tom Wray, J.B. Thompson, George Marshall, Tom Hamilton (now the hon. T. F Hamilton), and others. Looking at this list of names, and remembering how long it is since they were annually in every month, one begins to feel the march of time. Jack Conway, Dan Wilkie, Sam Cosstick, and others, came on the scene somewhat later, but during all the time of his connection with Intercolonial cricket the name of T. W. Wills was amongst the most prominent. He was one of those men of whom it could most certainly be said he was an enemy to no one so much as to himself.
THE LATE MR. T. W. WILLS
- from The Australasion, Saturday, 8 May 1880
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It is our painful duty to announce the death of this veteran cricketer, which took place on Sunday last at Heidelberg, under circumstances deeply to be regretted by all those who were acquainted with him, and, we may add, by all cricketers throughout Australia. Under temporary aberration of mind Mr. Wills inflicted such severe injuries upon himself that they were speedily fatal.
He had been residing for some time at Heidelberg, and had latterly so far given way to a fatal indulgence that it had been found necessary to place him under a restraint. During a brief absence of his guardian he stabbed himself in the region of the heart, and death quickly ensued.
Mr Thomas Wentworth Wills or "Tommy Wills", as he was familiarly called, was one of the pioneers of cricket in Australia, and not many years since his name was a household word wherever the game was played. He was the chief of that band of cricketers whose disinterested exertions (so different from what is too frequently the case now) caused Victoria to assume the proud position of leading the cricket colony of Australia, and of that band no one contributed more to bring cricket to its present flourishing position than Tommy Wills.
He was a good all-round cricketer, and as a judge of the game and a general no one has ever seen his equal here. As a bowler - at times a thrower - he was facile princeps. As a batsman he was always "all there" when wanted, with a heart always in the right place, and if not for an elegant style, yet a dogged defence, combined with hard hitting, that nonplussed so often the best bowlers to whom he was opposed. He was a capital field anywhere, and as a skipper always alive to take advantage of the least opening that presented itself.
He was in fact "the Grace" of Australia, but, unlike that celebrated player of the old world, Tommy Wills was as well known for his good nature and kind heart as he was famous for his skill as a player. Soon after he arrived here he played for the M.C.C., of which club he was at one time secretary. He then was the mainstay of the Richmond Club, and was instrumental with Gid Elliott in raising it to the proud position of the premier club, which it upheld for some years.
We can only briefly allude to his career here. In December, 1856, just previous to the second Intercolonial Match, he arrived fresh from Rugby and Cambridge (for which university he played against Oxford) in the same steamer that brought the then Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, to these shores. He was quickly enlisted in the Victorian eleven to do battle in the second match with New South Wales, which was played at Sydney, January, 1856. Victoria was defeated then, and as instancing the difference between those times and the present - when the scores are telegraphed from Sydney to Melbourne or vice versa at the fall of each wicket - nearly a week elapsed ere the news of Victoria's defeat was known here. But in the third match, under Tommy Wills's captaincy, the two first defeats were amply avenged, and "sub duce Tommy", as a classical lover of the game would say, Victoria commenced that long list of victories which did not terminate (with two interruptions) until 1873. That is, out of 16 matches to that date Victoria won 12, and in the majority of those, Tom Wills was captain.
He was away on the station in Queensland, where his father was murdered by the blacks, when the first Stephenson Eleven arrived here, but he was all there when Parr's team came out, and he went to New Zealand to play against them, making one of the United Twenty-two of Canterbury and Otago, and then one of the Canterbury Twenty-two, also of the Twenty two of Otago. He was back again in Victoria to assist Geelong, and then he gave his valuable aid to Ballarat against Parr's redoubtable team, and captained the Twenty two of Victoria in that final and memorable match on the M.C.C. ground, when Victoria could reckon amongst her players such as Wills, Conway, R. Wardill, Bryant, Greaves, Makinson, George Tait, Huddlestone, Marshall, Stewart, Cosstick, and R. Hewitt - a match not played out, but in which Victoria headed the best team England has sent out on the first innings by 20 runs, and memorable also from the fact that George Parr, perhaps the best batsman after Grace that ever went into a field, was bowled by a Sydney grubber by one Edward A'Beckett.
This was the time when he was at the zenith of his prowess as a cricketer. He played afterwards against W. G. Grace's team, but did not do much. Of late years he was a spectator more than a player, though there is no doubt that had he been his own best friend, he might have been playing up to now, with credit to himself and advantage to the colony that has so much cause to be proud of him. It was decreed otherwise, however, and his best friends, whilst they deplore his sad and untimely end, must nevertheless reflect with pride that as a cricketer - a colonial cricketer, that is - he has shed a lustre on the game of cricket in Australia which will not soon be dispelled, and all allow that if Tommy Wills had an enemy in this world, that enemy unhappily was himself alone.
In addition to his prowess as a cricketer, he was also one of the best football players the colony has ever had, and, in conjunction with Messrs. H. C. Harrison, George Tait, O'Mullane, Smith, and others of those early times, did much to foster that love of the game which has led to its present popularity in Victoria as a winter pastime, and, though naturally a proficient at the Rugby game, was equally skillful at that which, in accordance with the rules he assisted to draw up, is now the recognised game of all the colonies.
INQUEST. SUICIDE OF MR. T. W. WILLS
- from The Argus, Tuesday, 4 May 1880
Dr. Youl held an inquest at Heidelberg yesterday upon the body of Thomas Wentworth Wills, aged 45 years, who committed suicide on the previous day.
Sarah Theresa Wills, widow of deceased, deposed that her husband had been drinking for years. She took him to the Melbourne Hospital on Saturday last, and he was admitted, because he could not sleep. At 9 o'clock the same night she was told that her husband was on the verandah, waving his hands at some imaginary object. She got him into the house, and he went to bed, but did not sleep. A constable watched him, until a man named Dunmoody came to watch him. On Sunday, at 1 o'clock, the man went to his dinner, and deceased then went into the kitchen, and stabbed himself with a pair of scissors.
David Dunmoody labourer, who was employed to watch deceased, gave corroborative evidence and deposed that deceased tried to choke himself by holding his mouth and nose. When witness went to dinner he put away everything he thought deceased could harm himself with. Both deceased and his wife drank to excess.
The jury found that deceased committed suicide while of unsound mind from excessive drinking.
Footnotes
Title: SUICIDE OF WILLS, THE CRICKETER
Author: Staff writer
Publisher: Bendigo Advertiser (Vic: 1855 - 1918)
Date: Tuesday, 4 May 1880, p.2
Link: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88883678
Title: THE LATE MR. T. W. WILLS
Author: Staff writer
Publisher: The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946)
Date: Saturday, 8 May 1880, p.13
Link: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/143022198
Title: INQUEST. SUICIDE OF MR. T. W. WILLS.
Author: Staff writer
Publisher: The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957)
Date: Tuesday, 4 May 1880, p.7
Link: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5977684
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