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notoriety’ and now wondered at his sanity. As a result of their investigations, Willshire was committed for trial in
Port Augusta on a charge of murder. He was to spend 17 days in gaol before the bail money—a substantial sum
of 2 000 Pounds—was raised by station people, store-keepers, Overland Telegraph staff, miners and bush workers
of Central Australia, over sixty men in all contributing. Sir John Downer, former premier of South Australia and
‘one of the most eminent legal men of the day’, brilliantly defended Willshire and, despite the two burnt bodies
and the fact that the native police were under Willshire’s supervision, Willshire was freed by the verdict of the
Port Augusta jury.’ He was later to be vituperative about Gillen, who he claimed had acted in ‘revenge’ for some
past clash, and blamed Mounted Constable South for carrying out Gillen’s orders to arrest him.
It appears that Willshire’s superiors decided that tensions were too great in the Alice Springs district for him
to return there, and he spent some time in Innamincka, Port Augusta, Port Pirie and Adelaide before returning to
the Northern Territory in 1893. During his time ‘down south’, he was cautioned for appearing in court ‘under the
influence of drink’ and was in trouble for insolence and insubordination to his senior officers, and for lying about
the defacing of a police van.
After some time in Palmerston and Port Darwin, he was posted to the Victoria River country where, as he
had in Central Australia, he was ‘able to commit mayhem at will’. The head of one Aborigine was collected by
Willshire and buried in his garden so that a manager for Goldsborough Mort could use the skull for a spittoon, and
Willshire was ruthless during his tracking down of cattlekillers. After one encounter he wrote, ‘It’s no use mincing
matters—the Martini–Henry carbines at this critical moment were talking English in the silent majesty of those
great eternal rocks.’ It was as though he was openly defying everyone to again charge him for, when camps were
found, all males were shot and the women given over to the pleasure of his native constables, which had been the
specific allegations against him in 1890 by the Hermannsburg missionaries.
His booklets suggest a delight in nature, an appreciation of bush mates, an interest in reading, a degree of
appreciation of Aboriginal culture (which he believed would soon be extinct), easy use of Australian English, and
a sense of history. And, despite his ruthlessness in dealing with cattle-killers, he perceived a need for ration depots
and government assistance to ameliorate the lot of Aborigines.
Although there was that which he still greatly enjoyed about the then remote areas of Australia, Willshire twice
asked to be removed from Victoria River because of dissension in the local white community and eventually, it
seems, so that he could be near his sisters and parents in Adelaide. His transfer accorded, in fact, with a time when
reports of his activities caused F W Holder, a minister in the South Australian government, to write to Premier
C C Kingston and strongly request that ‘no time should be lost’ in ‘immediately’ removing Willshire from the
Northern Territory. Holder’s view was that Willshire was ‘the last man in the world who should be entrusted with
duties which bring him in contact with the Aborigines’.
Toward the end of 1895, Willshire was transferred to Adelaide, then spent the next 12 years at various
South Australian country postings, including major localities such as Port August and Port Lincoln. He was
married in 1896.
Willshire was made a Senior Constable in 1904 and resigned from the force on 31 January 1908, having
spent 30 years as a policeman, 10 of those years being in the Northern Territory. He took up the position of
nightwatchman at the Adelaide Metropolitan Abattoirs in 1908 and lived a quiet life until his death in 1925.
Willshire was representative of the 1880s–1890s era outback characters, rather than an aberration, as can be
seen by his support over the years by a wide range of people. In 1895 the Manager of Wave Hill Station described
him as a man who ‘would have never been forgotten had he never written a line’; in 1897 he was praised for his
police work in the Northern Territory; and in 1925 he was included in the list of ‘men of standing and high mental
calibre’ who were instrumental in establishing and maintaining a ‘fine tradition’ in the Police Department of South
Australia. It is difficult, in 1988, not to view him as other than a ruthless and sadistic man.
A street in Alice Springs is named after him.
R Clyne, Colonial Blue, 1987; M C Hartwig, ‘The Progress of White Settlement in the Alice Springs District and its Effects upon the
Aboriginal Inhabitants, 1860–1894’, unpublished PhD Thesis, Adelaide University, 1965; R G Kimber, ‘Heavitree Gap: A Confidential
Report’, unpublished paper, (CC NT); F Merlan, ‘“Making People Quiet” in the Pastoral North: Reminiscences of Elsey Station’, Aboriginal
History, vol 2, 1–2, 1978; D J Mulvaney & J H Calaby, So Much That Is New, 1980; N T Richardson, Pioneers of the North–West of South
Australia, 1925; C D Rowley, The Destruction of Aboriginal Society, vol 1, 1970; A Russell, A Tramp–Royal in Wild Australia: 1928–1929,
1934; H J Schmiechen, The Hermannsburg Mission Society in Australia 1866–1895, 1971; T G H Strehlow, Journey to Horseshoe Bend,
1969; W H Willshire, The Aborigines of Central Australia, 1888; W H Willshire, A Thrilling Tale of Real Life in the Wilds of Australia, 1895;
W H Willshire, The Land of the Dawning, 1896; Adelaide Observer, 16 August 1884 & 16 October 1897.
R G KIMBER, Vol 1.
WINNECKE, CHARLES GEORGE ALEXANDER (c1856–1902), surveyor, was probably born at Norwood,
South Australia, in 1856, although there are conflicting reports on the date. The son of German-born Carl Winnecke
and his wife, he was educated at St Peter’s College and became a surveyor.
In July 1877 the South Australian government dispatched the Herbert River and North East Exploring Expedition
of eight men under Herbert Barclay and Charles Winnecke. Their task was to explore and survey the little known
country northeast of Alice Springs and to determine the boundary of the Northern Territory and Queensland.
From November 1877 to the end of January 1878, preliminary work was undertaken in the Alice Springs area.
The party was then split with Winnecke delegated to carry out a trigonometrical survey around Alice Springs
while Barclay set out to find a route to the Herbert (Georgina) River. Barclay reached the Jervois Range but was
incapacitated from a horse fall and returned to Adelaide. Winnecke received charge of the expedition in July.