| Main Title: |
In the name of the law : William Willshire and the policing of the Australian frontier / Amanda Nettelbeck, Robert Foster. |
|
| Author: |
Nettelbeck, Amanda
Foster, Robert
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| Imprint: |
Kent Town, S. Aust. : Wakefield Press, 2007. |
| Collation: |
227, [20] p. of plates : ill., 1 map, portraits, bib., index, pbk ; 23 cm. |
| Summary: |
Mounted Constable William Willshire commanded a corps of Native Police in Central Australia during the 1880s. Notorious for the violence of his patrols, he was eventually tried in 1891 for the murder of two Aboriginal men, and was posted to an even more remote frontier in the Top End. His career was centred in the Northern Territory during the 1880s and 1890s then administered by South Australia. He commanded the Central Australian corps of Native Police, initially under South Australian and later under the Northern Territory administration, from its establishment in November 1884 until his arrest for murder in April 1891. During his time in the Territory, Willshire wrote of his experiences in several extraordinary memoirs. Part murder mystery and part courtroom drama, his story illuminates unfolding issues of race and nationalism in colonial Australia on the eve of Federation. With Aboriginal resistance to European incursions upon their land was at its height, it escalated the hardening of racial attitudes and national sentiment. The authors examine the qualities, strengths and weaknesses of this man against the changing times he was living through. |
| Subject: |
Willshire, William
Native Police Corps
Police
First Nations Australians
Biography
Crime and criminals
Race relations
First contact of aboriginal peoples with Westerners
Resistance
Alice Springs (NT)
Central Australia
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| ISBN: |
9781862547483 (pbk.) |
| Notes: |
Includes index.
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