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In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the psychiatrist Dr Greg de Moore chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Tom Wills: The Insubordinate Life of an Australian Sporting Legend. This is the updated edition of the definitive biography of Tom Wills, the visionary sportsman who brought us Australian Rules football. He was also the nation’s greatest cricketer of his era.
Shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2009
Tom Wills
Tom Wills: The Insubordinate Life of an Australian Sporting Legend is the story of Tom Wills, a flawed genius, sporting libertine, fearless leader and agitator. He is Australia’s first great cricketer and the sportsman most often credited with creating the game we now know as Australian Rules football.
Tom Wills, c. 1857
An Unknown Artist
National Portrait Gallery
In Tom Wills, Greg de Moore explores Tom’s life, uncovering a story of genius and tragedy. This biography extends beyond the standard narrative of Tom Wills as a sporting hero and icon, challenging long-held assumptions and revealing the human being behind the myths.
How Did Australian Rules Football Begin?
Tom’s parents sent him to the strict Rugby School in England at 14. He returned as a worldly young man whose cricket prowess quickly captured the hearts of the colony. However, in the desolation of the Queensland outback, far away from his adoring crowds, he experienced the devastating effects of racial tension when his father was murdered in the biggest massacre of Europeans by First Nations people. Nevertheless, five years later, Tom coached the first Aboriginal cricket team.
Uncovering the Truth
Tom Wills lived hard and fast, challenging authority on and off the field. But when his physical talents began to fade, the psychological demons that alcohol and adrenaline had kept at bay surged to the fore, driving him to the most brutal of suicides. He was forty-four and destitute.
Greg de Moore painstakingly pieces together Tom’s life, crafting an extraordinary portrait of one of Australia’s first sporting heroes, a man who lived by his own rules and whose contribution to Australian history has endured for more than 150 years.
This updated edition of the bestselling and authoritative biography includes vital new research and addresses the most troubling questions surrounding the spectacular, yet tragic life, of this fearless sporting leader.
A Psychological Autopsy
In Tom Wills: The Insubordinate Life of an Australian Sporting Legend, Greg de Moore offers readers a fresh and nuanced perspective on Tom Wills, revealing his remarkable achievements in sport as well as his personal struggles. Through meticulous research and thoughtful reflection, Greg crafted a biography that goes beyond the sporting legend to reveal the inner struggles, personal demons and contradictions that shaped Tom’s life.
Oil painting of Tom Wills, 1870
William Handcock
Melbourne Cricket Club Museum
By examining Tom’s profound impact on Australian sport alongside the darker aspects of his life, Greg invites us to reconsider the traditional narratives surrounding our nation’s sporting heroes. The Insubordinate Life of an Australian Sporting Legend provides deep insights into Tom’s legacy as a founder of Australian Rules football and offers an insightful exploration of the complexities of fame, mental health and personal resilience. Vitally, Greg reveals how Tom’s experiences continue to resonate in the context of contemporary Australian sport and culture.
Tom Wills Reviews
This updated, third edition of the biography of the larger-than-life, troubled figure of Tom Wills gives us a haunting portrait of the man who was instrumental in establishing the rules of AFL football and captained a touring Aboriginal cricket team in 1866 . . . has an epically larrikin, but tragic sweep.
The Age
A towering figure [who] deserves de Moore’s brilliantly written and researched book.
The Australian
Illuminating and intelligent
Inside Sport
Greg de Moore’s meticulous research provides a deep and thoughtful perspective on the dramatic life of this extraordinary man.
National Centre of Biography
Readers will find that this book shows all the evidence of the archive being well and truly dusted and the boots well-worn without the academic impedimenta being crusted on. As a psychiatrist one might say de Moore wears his professional knowledge lightly, except that it is his special training and intelligence which illuminates so many aspects of a variously hued life.
Bernard Whimpress
The Footy Almanac
Tom Wills: Interviews and Conversations
Richard Fidler, Conversations, 22 February 2013.
Jack Marsh History Lecture 2016 - Tom Wills, Sporting Club of Sydney, 29 March 2016.
Tom Wills Documentary Trailer, 7 August 2016.
Tom Wills Trailer, 19 June 2013.
Dr Greg de Moore is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry based at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital. Born in Melbourne of parents who migrated to Australia from Sri Lanka, Greg has lived in Sydney for more than thirty years.
An historian and author, Greg has written and co-written four books: Tom Wills (shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2009); A National Game: The History of Australian Rules Football; Finding Sanity: John Cade, Lithium and the Taming of Bipolar Disorder; and Australia’s Game: The History of Australian Football.