William Beauclerc Otway

William Beauclerc Otway (14 July 1819 – after 1866) was a mid-nineteenth-century American dragoon, overland emigrant, merchant, mineralogist, gold-miner and quartz-crusher. He is credited with being the first person to crush quartz for gold at Ballarat and for an early attempt to mine and process silver ore at St Arnaud.

United States Born in 1819, Otway joined the US Army Second Dragoons in May 1840 at the age of twenty, enlisting at New York. He served for a single five-year stint and was discharged at New Orleans having attained the rank of second sergeant.

He married Rebecca Abrams in San Francisco on 28 July 1852. and arriving at Ballarat three weeks later where they built a home on top of Black Hill.

Otway chaired a dinner honouring US Consul James M. Tarleton on 28 November 1854 held to show American support for the government in the face of increasing agitation by the miners in the lead-up to the Eureka Rebellion.

Three weeks after the Eureka Rebellion Otway gave evidence at the Gold Fields Commission of Enquiry. He was not questioned about the rebellion, and the bulk of his evidence was about the practicalities of mining and its regulation. He publicly launched his patented "improved" Chilean mill in January 1855,

Grave of Frank L. Otway and memorial to other Otway family members at St Arnaud cemetery.

There is no known record of Otway's death. The memorial to him and his family in St Arnaud cemetery suggests his family believed he may have gone to Western Australia.

Legacy Otway Street in Ballarat, Victoria, and Otway Creek near Mangana, Tasmania, were named after him.