Member-only story
The Lonesome Death of Willie Wimmera
1840–1852
When I walk my dogs through the old cemetery in Reading, England, we always pass a grave stone, battered through the years by wind and rain. It is hard to read the engraving that says:
Sacred
To the memory of
WILLIAM WIMMERA
An Australian boy
Who died in Christ
March 10th 1852
Aged 11 years
How did he get here, a stranger in a strange land, so far from his home? And why did he die so young?
This is his story.
Before 1836, an area of north-Western Victoria in Australia was still unknown to white settlers. The indigenous people were known as the Maligundidj who spoke the Wotjobaluk language. They were also known as the Wergaia, made up of twenty clans, occupying large swathes of land, including the Wimmera river.
Exploring the territory in 1836, Thomas Mitchell wrote:
Every day we passed over land which for natural fertility and beauty could scarcely be surpassed; over streams of unfailing abundance and plains covered with the richest pasturage. Stately…
