The Kind Hosts of Willie Wimmera

Willie Wimmera, an Aboriginal boy, was ten years old when clergyman Lloyd Chase brought him from Melbourne to Reading in 1851. Tragically, he became ill and died only a few months after his arrival. He is buried in Reading Old Cemetery, his grave marked ‘An Australian boy’.

A member of the Wotjobaluk People from the Wimmera region of Victoria, Australia, Willie couldn’t have been further from home – or in a place more different. What was he doing here? Who knew him and where did he live?

A contemporary memoir, republished here for the first time, provides the starting point for this investigation. With information gleaned from the 1851 UK Census and other primary sources, Mary Chambers paints a fascinating picture of Willie Wimmera – creative, curious, affectionate, and sometimes rebellious – and his ‘kind hosts’, the people closest to him during the short time he spent in England.