On Wednesday March 10, 1852 an 11-year-old boy
died in Reading from the effects of tuberculosis
and peritonitis. Several days later his body was
buried in the London Road Cemetery and a
headstone placed upon his grave as a memorial by
those who knew him. In part it read 'Sacred to
the memory of William Wimmera an Australian boy...'
A century and a half has now elapsed since
William 'Willie' Wimmera's death yet the
headstone that was erected still exists and is
today both a rare and poignant reminder of his
short existence.
Rare, because the grave it marks shares a
common history with only a handful of other known
graves in cemeteries across Britain
- it contains the remains of an indigenous
Australian.
The oldest burial site of an indigenous
Australian in Britain is the grave of
Yemmerrawanie (Yemmerrawanyea), a 19-year-old
native of the Eora tribe who died on May 18, 1794.
With Bennelong he was one of the first two
indigenous Australians to visit England. They
arrived in London from the fledgling Colony of
New South Wales aboard the Atlantic in
1793 and were presented to King George III.
Within a year Yemmerrawanie was dead and his body
interred in the churchyard of St. John the
Bapfist at Eltham, Kent.
The Warstone Lane (Church of England) cemetery
in Birmingham is the final resting place of
Edward Warrulan (Warru-loong). He was about nine
years old when he arrived in London aboard the Symmetry
in 1845. Warrulan was the son of a tribal chief
in the Colony of South Australia and had been
brought to England by Edward John Eyre, the noted
explorer. He and a companion were presented to
Queen Victoria in January 1846. Following Eyre's
appointment and departure to New Zealand as
LieutenantGovernor, Warrulan remained in England
where his benefactors placed him in an
agricultural school at Sibford, in Oxfordshire.
He later moved to Banbury where he learnt
saddlery and harness work before joining the
harness manufacturing firm of J. Middlemore in
Birmingham. He also was aged about 19 years when
he died from the effects of exposure on October
23,
At a park in Tower Hamlets in London's East
End lies Bripumyarrinin (also known as 'King
Cole', Brippokei, and Charles Rose). He was a
native of the Colony of Victoria and had the
distinction of being one of the members of the
first all-aboriginal cricket team to visit and
play in England. The team surreptitiously arrived
in London aboard the Parramatta in May 1868 and
had already played several matches when 'King
Cole' tragically succumbed to tuberculosis within
a month of their arrival and died on June 24,
1868 in Guy's Hospital, London.
William Wimmera was not a cricketer or the son
of a tribal chief. Nor was he ever presented to
royalty or had a well-known patron or benefactor.
He was the youngest known 'Australian boy' to die
and be buried so far from his land of origin.
'Willie', as he was referred to by his
benefactors and acquaintances in England, was a
native of the Wotjobaluk tribe who occupied lands
in the Wimmera district in the Colony of New
South Wales. He was born about 1840, only four
years after Major Thomas Mitchell and his
expedition had first traversed the region and in
whose wake came the eventual demise of its native
inhabitants.
Illustrated
London News, February 14, 1846
By the time the boy was six years of age, the
Wotjobaluk country had been encroached upon by
white squatters who brought with them thousands
of head of sheep to graze the lands. Clashes
between the Wotjobaluk and the European invaders
became inevitable as both culture and commercial
interests collided.
In a punitive measure for some unknown
aggression or act, in February 1846, a party of
white settlers set upon a camp of these
aboriginal people by the banks of the Wimmera
River. Amongst this native group was our six-year-old
boy who, by the end of the attack, was left
clinging to his dead mother - a bullet through
her heart. The woman was buried on the spot and
the 'orphaned' boy removed to the home of a
Belgian settler, Horatio Ellerman, who had both
participated in the raid and was reputed to have
fired the shot that had killed the boy's mother.
At the home of Ellerman he was brought up and
worked in the household as a servant. In December
1850, Willie's life took another dramatic turn.
He was invited to join some men on a trip carting
wood to Melbourne. But while in the city he
became lost and wandered the streets.
He was soon discovered by a group of young
white children and, either at the invitation of
his young peers or through curiosity followed
them home where he was both fed and allowed to
sleep. Willie also accompanied the white children
to their school and it was there he came to the
attention of the 33-year-old Reverend Septimus
Lloyd Chase, an Anglican clergyman and former
curate of St. Johns Church, Reading.
After discovering the boy in the school it
wasn't long before the Reverend Chase eventually
took him into his own home. Chase was soon to
return to England and so, with the thought of
educating and evangelising the boy into the
Christian Church, he asked Willie if he wished to
accompany him. But Chase didn't realise that the
boy was not an orphan, as his father and brothers
were still alive in the Wimmera district, a fact
that was realised many years later when his story
was told to a local aboriginal congregation.
The barque Sacramento departed
Melbourne on the March 29, 1851. A local
newspaper recorded that among her passengers were
the Reverend Chase and his 'servant'. It was a
very long passage to England but it provided
Chase with ample time to give the young
aboriginal boy instruction in reading and writing
and prayer. Following their arrival in London in
September 1851 Chase and his young charge
travelled to Reading, to the residence of Chase's
father, Samuel. Over the next six months, the boy
was cared for and educated by Chase's family and
his acquaintances at Reading and at Iver nearer
London. He was given lessons in writing and
drawing and taught practical skills in plaiting
straw and making shoes. His education into the
Bible and Christianity also continued.
Whilst at Iver, the boy became ill with
congestion of the lungs and so it was decided
that he should return to Australia as it was
considered that the English climate could prove
fatal. He returned to Reading before Christmas
but his condition continued to deteriorate. On
January 8, 1852 Chase was married at St. Giles in
Reading and because of this and other commitments
was not able to provide the boy with his full
attention.
Nevertheless, with Willie's understanding and
acceptance of his new faith, Chase had the young
Wotjobaluk boy baptized into the Church where he
received the name 'William Wimmera' - a
reflection of his origins because his traditional
or given aboriginal name was probably never known
or had been long forgotten.
Sadly, over the next few months the boy's
condition scarcely improved. He lost a great deal
of weight and he suffered great pain. Although
his passage back to Australia in the company of
Chase had been arranged Willie did not live long
enough to make the journey home. Despite the
efforts of his benefactor and carers he finally
succumbed before dawn on that spring morning of
Wednesday, March 10, 1852.
Plot 10, Row A, Section 44 of the London Road
Cemetery, Reading holds more than the body of
that eleven-year-old boy. It holds a glimpse into
our history and although there may be none now
who will mourn or mark the sesqui-centenary of
his passing we can at least remember and reflect.
Bibliography:
Aborigines' friend and colonial
intelligencer, London. V. 1, No. 1, January-December
1855.
Argus, Melbourne, 1895.
Christie, M. F. / Aborigines in
colonial Victoria, 1835-86. Sydney: Sydney
University Press, 1979.
The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal
Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
history, society and culture. Canberra:
Australian Studies Press for the Australian
Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies, 1994. Illustrated London News,
London, 1846.
Massola, Aldo. Aboriginal
mission stations in Victoria. Melbourne:
Hawthorn, 1970.
Mulvaney, D. J. Cricket
walkabout: the Australian aborigines in England.
2nd ed. South Melbourne: Macmillan in association
with the Dept. of Aboriginal Affairs, 1988.
Scholefield, Mrs H. A short
memoir of William Wimmera: an Australian boy who
sailed from Melbourne, April 1851 died at
Reading, March 10 1852.
