Tom Wills

Thomas Wentworth Wills (1835 to 1880) was an Australian sportsman who is credited with being Australia's first cricketer of significance and a founder of Australian rules football. Born in New South Wales to a wealthy family and raised in what is now Victoria, he was sent to Rugby School in England and later played first-class cricket for Kent and the Marylebone Cricket Club. After returning to Victoria in 1856 he captained the Victoria cricket team. In 1858 he called for a foot-ball club with a code of laws to give cricketers a winter pastime, captained a Melbourne side that winter, and in 1859 co-wrote the laws that form the basis of Australian rules. With his cousin H. C. A. Harrison he went on to develop the game as player, umpire and administrator. He died in 1880, and his place in the history of the game remains a subject of dispute.