Tom Wills facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tom Wills
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Statue at the Melbourne Cricket Ground of Tom Wills umpiring a game of school or folk football in 1858
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| Born | August 19, 1835 |
| Died | May 2, 1880 (aged 44) Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia
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Thomas Wentworth "Tom" Wills (19 August 1835 – 3 May 1880) was an Australian all-round sportsman who helped invent Australian Football and helped write the Laws of Australian Football.
Wills was born in south-east New South Wales, Australia either near Gundagai or Queanbeyan.
From the age of 14 he went to Rugby School in England. At school he played both rugby football and cricket very well. By his final year in England, he was captain of the Rugby XI and he was listed in Bells Sporting Life as being one of the most promising young cricketers in England.
In 1859, Wills was involved with others in creating a set of football rules that were like a cross between rugby, soccer and Gaelic football. He made up the game for cricketers to keep in shape during the off-season (winter). Wills had help from people who included his cousin Henry Colden Harrison, and W.J. Hammersly and J.B. Thompson. This game is now Australian Rules Football.
Wills grew up with Indigenous Australians. He spoke the language of the people who lived near him and played with the children. It has been suggested that Australian Rules Football is based in part on Marn Grook, an Aboriginal game with some similar rules to Australian Rules Football. Because the indigenous people Wills played with as a child would have played Marn Grook, Wills would have been influenced by this game when creating the rules for Australian Rules Football.
Images for kids
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Wills grew up amongst Aboriginal clans in the Mount William area of the Grampians, shown in this 19th-century painting by Eugene von Guérard.
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Wills is shown preparing to bowl in an intercolonial match between Victoria and New South Wales, MCG, 1858. He became "an instant colonial hero" after captaining Victoria to its first victory.
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Wills (far right) with professional members of the Victoria XI, 1859. He preferred the company of professionals in an era when they were shunned by amateurs of his social stature.
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Horatio Wills
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Tom Wills, c. 1863
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Football match between Geelong and Melbourne. The two clubs fought over which side "owned" Wills.
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Wills' stint in jail following his arrest on the Albert Ground (pictured) marked the decline of his role within the team.
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Portrait of Wills in the colours of the MCC, William Handcock, 1870, National Sports Museum collection
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Hammersley (standing), The Australasian's chief sportswriter, led a campaign to have Wills (seated) banned from intercolonial cricket.
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An 1873 caricature of W. G. Grace. In his obituaries, Wills was referred to as "the Grace of Australia".
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Wills fled the Melbourne Hospital within hours of his admission.
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Wills' 1860 "coup de main" has been described as "arguably the most important and influential tactical manoeuvre in the history of Australian football".
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Detail of an 1857 etching that shows Aboriginal boys kicking and catching a ball made from plant roots.
