Isolated and estranged from most of his family, Wills had become, in the words of cricket historian David Frith, "a complete and dangerous and apparently incurable alcoholic".
An oft-repeated story that Wills ended up at Kew Lunatic Asylum near the end of his life is not supported by substantive evidence.
He and Barbor abruptly stopped drinking on 28 April 1880; it is presumed that they ran out of money to buy more alcohol.
Two days later, Wills started to show signs of alcohol withdrawal, and on 1 May, Barbor, fearing that a calamity was at hand, admitted him to the Melbourne Hospital, where his physician treated him for delirium tremens.
Later that night, Wills absconded, returned home and the next day, in the grip of paranoid delusions, committed suicide by stabbing a pair of scissors into his heart three times.
The inquest, on 3 May, presided over by coroner Richard Youl, found that Wills "killed himself when of unsound mind from excessive drinking".
His burial took place the next day in an unmarked grave in Heidelberg Cemetery at a private funeral attended by only six people: his brother Egbert, sister Emily and cousin Harrison; Harrison's sister Adela and her son Amos; and cricketer Verney Cameron, who later ran an unsuccessful fundraiser for a tombstone over the grave.
When asked by a journalist about her late son, Elizabeth Wills denied that Tom ever existed, and according to family lore, she never spoke of him again.
Isolated and estranged from most of his family, Wills had become, in the words of cricket historian David Frith, "a complete and dangerous and apparently incurable alcoholic". An oft-repeated story that Wills ended up at Kew Lunatic Asylum near the end of his life is not supported by substantive evidence. He and Barbor abruptly stopped drinking on 28 April 1880; it is presumed that they ran out of money to buy more alcohol. Two days later, Wills started to show signs of alcohol withdrawal, and on 1 May, Barbor, fearing that a calamity was at hand, admitted him to the Melbourne Hospital, where his physician treated him for delirium tremens. Later that night, Wills absconded, returned home and the next day, in the grip of paranoid delusions, committed suicide by stabbing a pair of scissors into his heart three times. The inquest, on 3 May, presided over by coroner Richard Youl, found that Wills "killed himself when of unsound mind from excessive drinking". His burial took place the next day in an unmarked grave in Heidelberg Cemetery at a private funeral attended by only six people: his brother Egbert, sister Emily and cousin Harrison; Harrison's sister Adela and her son Amos; and cricketer Verney Cameron, who later ran an unsuccessful fundraiser for a tombstone over the grave. When asked by a journalist about her late son, Elizabeth Wills denied that Tom ever existed, and according to family lore, she never spoke of him again.
Tom Wills