Record ID:
35498413 (Libraries Australia Authorities)
Authority type:
  • Name.
Description conventions:
  • rda rda
LC number:
  • n 88018012
Heading:
Birth:
  • 183401015
  • Totnes (England)
Death:
  • 18610630~
  • Coopers Creek (Qld. and S.A.)
Associated with:
  • Australia Melbourne (Vic.) Victoria Central Australia Carpentaria, Gulf of (N.T. and Qld.)
Fields of activity:
  • surveyor, explorere
Occupations:
  • Surveyors Explorers
See also:
Notes:
  • second-in-command of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition
  • Colwell, M. The journey of Burke and Wills, c1971: t.p. (Wills) p. 37, etc. (William John Wills, b. at Totnes, Devonshire on 1-5-1834; d. 1861)
  • LC data base, 11-28-88 (hdg.: Wills, William John, 1834-1861)
  • Australian Dictionary of Biography (online) 2 August 2022: (William John Wills (1834-1861), explorer, was born on 5 January 1834 at Totnes, Devon, England. He arrived at Williamstown, Port Phillip, on 3 January 1853. He worked in western Victoria, studied surveying and became an assistant at the astronomical and magnetical observatories at Melbourne, leading to his appointment as surveyor, astronomer and third-in-command to the Royal Society of Victoria's expedition to cross Australian south to north, led by Robert O';Hara Burke, departing Melbourne on 20 August 1860. After many vicissitudes Wills reached the shoreline of the Gulf of Carpentaria on 11 February 1861; Wills was one of three survivors who returned to the Cooper's Creek camp, only to find the others had left the same morning; Wills died there about 30 June 1861. His remains, with those of Burke, were returned to Melbourne, and a public funeral took place on 21 January 1863. In the subsequent inquiry, no blame was attached to Wills.) https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wills-william-john-4864
Local system number:
  • (AU-CaAIA)XX155961
  • 000000501246
  • abv04537751
  • (AU-CaAIA)XX34301
Cataloguing source:
  • ANL eng rda ANL DLC rda VJTL
Authentication code:
  • anuc