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Matches in DBpedia 2014 for { ?s ?p Thomas Wentworth "Tom" Wills (19 August 1835 – 2 May 1880) was a 19th-century sportsman who is credited with being Australia's first cricketer of significance and a pioneer of the sport of Australian rules football.Born in the British colony of New South Wales, Wills grew up on properties owned by his father, the pastoralist and nationalist Horatio Wills, in what is now the Australian state of Victoria. He befriended local Aborigines, learning many aspects of their culture. At the age of 14, Wills was sent to England to attend Rugby School, where he became captain of Rugby's cricket team, and played an early version of rugby football. After Rugby, Wills represented the Cambridge University Cricket Club in the annual match against Oxford, and played in first-class cricket matches for Kent and the Marylebone Cricket Club. An athletic all-rounder with devastating bowling analyses, he was regarded as one of the finest young cricketers in England.Wills returned to Victoria in 1856, where he captained the Victorian cricket team to repeated victories in intercolonial matches against New South Wales, and was made secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club. In 1858 he called for the formation of a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during the off-season. After founding the Melbourne Football Club the following year, Wills and three other members codified the first laws of Australian rules football. He and his cousin H. C. A. Harrison were among the dominant players and administrators during the game's early years.In 1861, Wills was summoned by his father to Central Queensland to establish a family property. Two weeks after their arrival, Wills' father and 18 others were murdered in the Cullin-La-Ringo massacre, the largest massacre of European settlers by Aborigines in Australian history. Wills survived and returned to Melbourne in 1864. He continued to play football and cricket, and, in 1866–67, coached and captained an Aboriginal cricket team—the first Australian team to tour England. In a career marked by controversy, Wills straddled the class divide between amateur and professional cricketers, and became the first cricketer in 1872 to be no-balled for throwing in a major Australian match. His first-class career ended in 1876, a year before the birth of Test cricket. By then, Wills' sporting glory belonged to a colonial past that "seemed like a distant land, quaint and old fashioned". Psychological trauma from the massacre was worsened by his alcoholism. Wills was admitted to the Melbourne Hospital in May 1880, suffering from delirium tremens, but shortly afterwards escaped and returned to his home in Heidelberg, where he committed suicide by stabbing a pair of scissors through his heart.Wills' imprint on Australian culture was little known for much of the 20th century. A statue of Wills was erected outside of the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2001, and he was an inaugural inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Wills has been characterised in modern times as an archetype of the fallen sportsman, and as a symbol of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The claim of an Aboriginal influence on Wills' conception of Australian football has been a subject of debate among historians. According to biographer Greg de Moore, Wills "stands alone in all his absurdity, his cracked egalitarian heroism and his fatal self-destructiveness—the finest cricketer and footballer of the age.". }

• Tom_Wills abstract "Thomas Wentworth "Tom" Wills (19 August 1835 – 2 May 1880) was a 19th-century sportsman who is credited with being Australia's first cricketer of significance and a pioneer of the sport of Australian rules football.Born in the British colony of New South Wales, Wills grew up on properties owned by his father, the pastoralist and nationalist Horatio Wills, in what is now the Australian state of Victoria. He befriended local Aborigines, learning many aspects of their culture. At the age of 14, Wills was sent to England to attend Rugby School, where he became captain of Rugby's cricket team, and played an early version of rugby football. After Rugby, Wills represented the Cambridge University Cricket Club in the annual match against Oxford, and played in first-class cricket matches for Kent and the Marylebone Cricket Club. An athletic all-rounder with devastating bowling analyses, he was regarded as one of the finest young cricketers in England.Wills returned to Victoria in 1856, where he captained the Victorian cricket team to repeated victories in intercolonial matches against New South Wales, and was made secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club. In 1858 he called for the formation of a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during the off-season. After founding the Melbourne Football Club the following year, Wills and three other members codified the first laws of Australian rules football. He and his cousin H. C. A. Harrison were among the dominant players and administrators during the game's early years.In 1861, Wills was summoned by his father to Central Queensland to establish a family property. Two weeks after their arrival, Wills' father and 18 others were murdered in the Cullin-La-Ringo massacre, the largest massacre of European settlers by Aborigines in Australian history. Wills survived and returned to Melbourne in 1864. He continued to play football and cricket, and, in 1866–67, coached and captained an Aboriginal cricket team—the first Australian team to tour England. In a career marked by controversy, Wills straddled the class divide between amateur and professional cricketers, and became the first cricketer in 1872 to be no-balled for throwing in a major Australian match. His first-class career ended in 1876, a year before the birth of Test cricket. By then, Wills' sporting glory belonged to a colonial past that "seemed like a distant land, quaint and old fashioned". Psychological trauma from the massacre was worsened by his alcoholism. Wills was admitted to the Melbourne Hospital in May 1880, suffering from delirium tremens, but shortly afterwards escaped and returned to his home in Heidelberg, where he committed suicide by stabbing a pair of scissors through his heart.Wills' imprint on Australian culture was little known for much of the 20th century. A statue of Wills was erected outside of the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2001, and he was an inaugural inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Wills has been characterised in modern times as an archetype of the fallen sportsman, and as a symbol of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The claim of an Aboriginal influence on Wills' conception of Australian football has been a subject of debate among historians. According to biographer Greg de Moore, Wills "stands alone in all his absurdity, his cracked egalitarian heroism and his fatal self-destructiveness—the finest cricketer and footballer of the age."".