Lanne, William (1835-1869), was regarded as the last male Aboriginal person of Tasmania at the time of his death in the mid-1800’s. However, it was later learned that a community of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, descended from Tasmanian Aboriginal women and European sealers, survived on the islands of Bass Strait. The identity and culture of the Aboriginal peoples of Tasmania has been preserved among them to the present day.
Lanne’s name is sometimes spelled Lanney. His family was the last Aboriginal group in Tasmania to surrender to the Europeans and to leave their lands. They arrived at the Wybalenna settlement on Flinders Island in 1842, when William was 7 years old. The family consisted of his mother, Nabrunga; his father, John Lanne; and his four brothers, Barnaby Rudge, Charles, Pleti, and Francis. They gave themselves up near the Arthur River on the West Coast, because they were lonely.
William spent the next five years at Wybalenna. During this time, his parents and three of his brothers died. In 1847, when William was 12, he was one of 15 men, 22 women, and 10 children who had survived Wybalenna. The adults were moved to an unused convict station at Oyster Cove, but William was transferred to the Orphan School in Hobart Town. He spent four years there, where overcrowding, poor food, and severe punishment made his life unhappy.
In 1851, Lanne began a whaling apprenticeship with two other young men, Jack Allen and Adam Cochrane. The government had decided that able-bodied people should be put to work to cut costs. After beginning his apprenticeship, Lanne rarely spent time at Oyster Cove, and therefore was not exposed to the disease and despair that overwhelmed the other Aboriginal people of Tasmania who had been settled there.
When people began to regard Lanne as the last surviving male Aboriginal person of Tasmania, the colonists gave him the nickname King Billy. In 1864, he lodged an official complaint with the colonial secretary over poor conditions at Oyster Cove, saying, “I am the last man of my race and I must look after my people.” Lanne died of cholera on March 6, 1869, after he returned from a whaling trip.
See also Smith, Fanny Cochrane; Truganini.
