The Currency Lad
by T. S. Wills Cooke 1997 - Click here to download the complete story (2.7mb PDF)
A biography of Horatio Spencer Howe Wills, 5 October 1811 to 17 October 1861 and the story of his immediate family 1797 to 1918 : using contemporary letters, documents, daguerreotypes, paintings and photographs.
Horatio Wills, posthumous son of a convict, born in Sydney in 1811,
- Editor of the Sydney Gazette
- Proprietor and Editor of the Currency Lad, Australia’s first privately owned newspaper
- Landowner with properties successively Burra Burra near modern day Canberra, Lexington, la Rose and Mokepilly at Moyston Victoria, Belle Vue at Point Henry Geelong Victoria and Cullinlaringo near Springsure, Queensland.
- Member of the Victorian Parliament
- Pioneer of Australian agriculture
- Founder of the Geelong and Western District Agricultural and Horticultural Society
- Leader of the party which was attacked by Aboriginals and became the largest massacre of whites in Australia’s history before Port Arthur. He and 18 other men, women and children were killed in October 1861 in what became known as the Springsure massacre.
- Father of Thomas Wentworth Wills, the Founder of Australian football, twelve times Captain of Victoria in Inter-colonial cricket and coach of the first (Aboriginal) cricket team to tour England and
- Uncle of Henry Colden Antill Harrison, the Father of Australian Football, writer of the rules and President of the Football Association.
This book of 300 pages with many illustrations is mostly derived from letters and other papers in the possession of the author giving a vivid description of the time about people who are major figures in Australia’s history.