Horatio Wills

Horatio Spencer Howe Wills (5 October 1811 – 17 October 1861)

Wills worked as a printer and editor for Australia's first newspaper, The Sydney Gazette, before founding his own journal, The Currency Lad, in 1832. In it, he promoted the interests of "currency lads and lasses" (native-born white Australians) and made the earliest arguments for a form of Australian republicanism, prefiguring the nationalist attitudes of the late 19th century. He fathered nine children, including Tom Wills, Australia's first great cricketer and founder of Australian rules football. and was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for South Grant in November 1856, a position he held until August 1859.

In 1861, Horatio moved north to Queensland, at Cullin-la-ringo in the Nogoa region near Rockhampton. Less than three weeks later, Wills was murdered by aborigines, along with 18 of his employees at the Cullin-la-ringo massacre, 17 October 1861; the largest massacre of whites by Aboriginal people in Australian history.