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The suicide of Thomas Wentworth Wills

Thomas Wentworth Wills was the most important Australian sportsman of his time. He captained the Victorian colony at cricket and was the first hero of Australian Rules football. Although his picture now adorns the conservative Melbourne Cricket Club, he died in 1880, an isolated, destitute alcoholic, after stabbing himself in the heart. Wills embodied a tradition, as prevalent today as it was over 100 years ago, that weds sport with alcohol in Australian culture.

Gregory M de Moore

Thomsa Wentworth Wills

MJA 1999; 171: 656-658

Introduction - Alcohol abuse, delirium tremens and suicide - Acknowledgements - References - Authors' details
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Illustration: an 1870 oil painting of Thomas Wills.


Introduction Thomas Wentworth Wills was born near modern-day Canberra on 19 August 1835. In 1840, his father, Horatio Spencer Wills, a wealthy pastoralist and strident nationalist, moved from New South Wales to the Western District of Victoria, where Tom spent his early years.

Wills' father, who later became a Victorian parliamentarian, exerted a dominating influence on his son's life. In 1850, Tom was sent on the long voyage to England to attend Rugby School. There he became a champion all-round sportsman, but not the studious academic his father had hoped for.1 He later played for the Cambridge XI against Oxford, in one of the cricketing season's highlights, before returning to Melbourne in 1856.2


"... (drink), the curse of these colonies - the demon which has desolated so many homes and blasted the fair fame of thousands - got its hold upon him" 3


Wills soon became the champion cricketer of the colony, leading Victoria to a series of successes against NSW.4 It was a time of intense intercolonial rivalry and sport provided a prominent arena for the playing out of social and political quarrels. The "older" NSW colony defended itself against the upstart "younger" Victorian colony, the latter boosted by the gold finds of the 1850s.

In his famous letter of July 1858 to a Victorian sporting paper,5 Wills extolled the virtues of fitness and suggested that a football club be formed. This letter was to change the course of sporting history in Australia. From this, a new style of football developed, later to be christened "Australian Rules" football, which is now the most popular spectator sport in the country. Wills was an early champion of this game and helped to shape its rules. In a young country seeking a nascent independence, he was the key figure in the creation of this indigenous sport. Independent and of a roving disposition, he was soon playing cricket and football for clubs throughout Victoria and the other colonies.

In 1861, Wills' father summoned him from Victoria to the recently purchased family property of Cullinlaringo, in Queensland. On October 17 that year, his father, along with 18 others, was killed in a conflict with the local Aboriginals. This was the greatest number of Europeans killed in a single battle with Aboriginals in Australian history.

Tom, who was fortunately not with his father at the time of the attack, survived. Intriguingly, and despite this traumatic event, he later coached an Aboriginal cricket team.6 That team, from western Victoria, captained by Wills on Boxing Day 1866, played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to the applause of up to 10 000 spectators. Further games played by the team throughout Sydney and major provincial centres in 1867 created tremendous excitement. As on numerous other occasions, Wills fell out of favour with organisers of the cricket tour. By the time the Aboriginal team toured England in 1868, he had been usurped as the team's captain and coach, and consequently did not accompany them.



Alcohol abuse, delirium tremens and suicide
Wills was charismatic, at times narcissistic, with a flair for conflict and a prickly, creative temperament, but he was passionate about sport. However, accusations of "throwing" in cricket, the effect of alcohol on his behaviour on the sporting field, and his tempestuous nature were subjects of public gossip and controversy. The link between sport and alcohol was never far away. In the 1850s to 1870s it was common for the drinking of alcohol to influence the course of a game. Champagne lunches were frequently held, even if they delayed the game's commencement. Some newspaper reports of intercolonial and local games gave nearly as much space to the celebrations and after-match festivities as they did to the match itself. In fact, the use of a "nobbler" to soften the opposition was deemed a not unreasonable tactic. It was in this environment that Wills played sport. The heavy use of alcohol in colonial life was frequently commented upon in the newspapers, and it would be difficult to overemphasise the competing forces of alcohol abuse and temperance in the daily press.

In the 1870s, reports of Wills' activities petered out as his once-transcendent sporting achievements declined. The last few years of his private life are scarcely recorded in contemporary documents. In his final years he was living with his partner, Sarah Theresa Barbor. Tom and Sarah, both heavy drinkers, drifted into social decline away from the eyes of a previously adoring public and an increasingly alienated family.

Dr Patrick Moloney

In late April 1880, either because of his deteriorating mental state or because of threats to himself or others, Wills was placed under close observation and restraint. He continued to drink heavily and was attended by a local medical practitioner, Dr Black, on April 30 at Wills' Heidelberg residence. On the morning of May 1, Sarah reported that Tom was unable to sleep, and, fearing for her life and the lives of others, took him to Melbourne Hospital. He was admitted under Dr Patrick Moloney (see Box), "the authorities there promising they would keep him under restraint until he recovered".11

The events of the next few hours have, until recently, remained a mystery. A previously undiscovered half-page entry from Dr Moloney's casebook recording Wills' hospitalisation reveals his mental state as it was less than 24 hours before his death: ". . . patient admitted in a semi Delirium Tremens state . . . tremulous movements of hands -- was rather obstinate -- refused to remain in hospital."12 He absconded at 5 pm. Although described as "obstinate", this may have been a reflection not so much of his character as of the delusions and hallucinations that were to culminate in his act of self-destruction.

At 9 pm, to Sarah's surprise, he was found in an agitated state by a neighbour near his home in Heidelberg. He was experiencing paranoid delusions and making threats to himself and others. He was heard to mutter "Shall I murder her or not? No, I won't."11 He argued with non-existent companions, hid beneath his bed and experienced visual hallucinations. Fearing that a calamity was at hand, his attendants removed all objects with which he might harm himself or others. A labourer was employed to closely guard him. Nevertheless, at one o'clock the following afternoon he managed to elude his attendants. Grasping a pair of scissors, he plunged them into his chest three times, despite Sarah's frantic attempts to stop him.

The inquest, on 3 May 1880, conducted by Dr Richard Youl,13 found that Wills "committed suicide while of unsound mind from excessive drinking". One can speculate that he was responding to auditory hallucinations instructing him to take his life, or persecutory delusions that rendered the world an overwhelming threat to his sense of safety. Although stabbing is an uncommon method of self-destructive behaviour, psychotic symptoms (such as hearing voices urging the infliction of self-harm) and alcohol abuse are common features.14 It was notable that at times he appeared to act in a more normal manner, and this was the case just before taking his life.13 This almost certainly refers to the fluctuating behaviour that can occur in delirium and its perhaps misleading message to an observer that the patient is improving.

The ferocity of the behavioural manifestations of delirium tremens was well recognised at the time of Wills' admission. A review of the common treatments for delirium tremens appeared in the Australian Medical Journal in 1856.15 The role of a warm climate such as in Australia was postulated as not only encouraging imbibing but as also inducing a "peculiar condition of the blood" which helped induce delirium tremens. The wide array of recommended treatments included "morphia, chloroform, aperients, strong beef tea and application of cold water to the head and spine". There were descriptions of the "great restlessness [and] frightful mental illusions", requiring a patient to be guarded with scrupulous care and, if necessary, controlled by "the force of several attendants".15 A perusal of the Melbourne Hospital's casebooks for 1880 reveals that absconding from the hospital, sometimes while delirious, was not an uncommon method of discharge.

On Wills' death certificate it was reported that his parents were unknown. This was an extraordinary pronouncement for the son of a prominent Victorian family and a "household name",4 and probably reflected the shame surrounding his suicide. The reaction to his suicide was perhaps predictable. His funeral was private and attended by only a handful of people. Sarah Barbor was paid by the family to remain away thereafter. Family correspondence in the following years barely acknowledges his existence.



Acknowledgements
Mr Peter Gill, genealogist; Ms Gabby Haveaux, archivist, Royal Melbourne Hospital. Photograph of Thomas Wills courtesy of Australian Gallery of Sport and Olympic Museum at the Melbourne Cricket Ground; Melbourne Cricket Club Museum and Library.


References
  1. Blainey G. A game of our own. The origins of Australian Football. Melbourne: Information Australia, 1990.
  2. Steel AG, Lyttelton RH. Cricket. London, 1888.
  3. Point. Thomas Wentworth Wills. The Leader May 8, 1880: 13.
  4. The late T W Wills. The Melbourne Evening Herald May 3, 1880: 2.
  5. Wills T W. Bells Life July 10, 1858.
  6. Perrin L. Cullin-La-Ringo: The triumph and tragedy of Tommy Wills. Brisbane: Les Perrin, 1998.
  7. Neild JE. Victoria and its metropolis. Past and present. Vol. II. The colony and its people in 1888. Melbourne: McCarron, Bird & Co., 1888.
  8. Gregory A. The ever open door. A history of the Royal Melbourne Hospital 1848-1998. South Melbourne: Hyland House, 1998.
  9. Attwood H, Forster F, Gandevia B, editors. Patrick Moloney. Murphy LJT. Occasional Papers on Medical History Australia. Melbourne: Medical History Society, Australian Medical Association (Victorian Branch) and Medical History Unit, University of Melbourne, 1984: 1-33.
  10. Dr Patrick Maloney [obituary]. The Catholic Advocate Oct 1, 1904: 15.
  11. Letter, E.S. Wills to H.S. Wills May 9, 1880. Lawton Cooke [grand-nephew of T W Wills], family correspondence, Melbourne.
  12. Moloney P. Casebook, No. 21 Ward, Melbourne Hospital, 2 January 1880 to 1 May 1880.
  13. Inquest. Thomas Wentworth Wills, May 3, 1880. Victorian Public Records Office, VPRS 24/Unit 406/File 366.
  14. Patel V, de Moore GM. Harakiri: a clinical study of self-stabbing. J Clin Psychiatry 1994; 55: 98-103.
  15. Black J. On delirium tremens. Australian Medical Journal April 1856; 119-124.


Authors' details Department of Psychiatry, University of Sydney at Westmead Hospital, Sydney, NSW.
Gregory M de Moore, MB BS, BSc(Med), FRANZCP, Clinical Lecturer and Director of Postgraduate Studies in Psychiatry.

Reprints will not be available from the author.
Correspondence: Dr G M de Moore, Department of Psychiatry, Westmead Hospital, PO Box 533, Wentworthville, NSW 2145.

©MJA 1999
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The Melbourne Hospital and Dr Patrick Moloney

Dr Moloney's case book Melbourne Hospital 1880
The Melbourne Hospital (now the Royal Melbourne Hospital), founded in 1848, was fair game for the colony's newspapers. 7 In 1876, a graphic and colourful account of the hospital's outpatient department was penned by a reporter in disguise called "The Vagabond", who noted the overcrowded, dirty conditions and the shortness of consultations (less than one minute on average). 8 Dr Patrick Moloney was one of the first two fully Australian-trained students to graduate (in 1867) from the new Melbourne University School of Medicine. 9,10 Born in Camberwell, Melbourne, he was also well known as an author, poet and classical scholar. In 1867, he was appointed resident physician at the Melbourne Hospital, where he remained for over four years. After a controversial departure (after claims of absences from the hospital premises) he was later reinstated, in 1875, as an honorary physician, becoming the first Australian graduate to hold such a position. By the year of Wills' admission, 1880, Moloney was a prominent Melburnian figure and co-editor of the Australian Medical Journal.
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