William Lanne: The Last Man of a Lost People

William Lanne. Photo: Collected.

History is filled with stories where one person’s life comes to represent the loss of an entire nation. Among those haunting tales stands the name William Lanne, remembered as “King Billy.” His life and even more so, his death, remain one of the most painful symbols of how colonialism erased an entire people from their own land.

William Lanne was the last full-blooded Aboriginal man of Tasmania, born to parents who belonged to the island’s original Palawa community. But his story cannot be told apart from the larger tragedy that swept across Tasmania in the 19th century.

When the British colonizers arrived in 1803, they declared the island “terra nullius,” a Latin term meaning “land belonging to no one.” What followed was the Black War, a ruthless campaign of genocide, violence, and forced removal. Entire villages were wiped out. Men were killed, and women and children were captured and sent to remote settlements like Flinders Island.

Somehow, young William survived one of the few to live through this brutal chapter. But as he grew older, he came to face a shattering reality: his people were disappearing. By the time he reached adulthood, William was known as the last surviving full-blooded man of the Palawa the final witness to a culture on the brink of extinction.

At just 34 years old, William Lanne died of tuberculosis. Yet even death did not bring him peace. His body was stolen and mutilated in the name of “science.” Officials from the Hobart Medical College and the local museum removed his skull and organs, sending them to Europe for so-called studies on “human evolution.” In truth, it was another act of colonial desecration — one last indignity inflicted on a man whose people had already been destroyed.

For over a century, fragments of his remains were stored and displayed in museums and research institutions across Europe. Only in 1991, after years of activism and heartbreak, were his remains finally returned to Tasmania — to rest on the same soil where his ancestors once walked free.

That year, William Lanne, King Billy, was laid to rest at last. His story still echoes through time, a stark reminder of the cruelty that hid behind the word “civilization.”

Today, his name stands not just as a symbol of loss, but as a call to remember and to never again allow history to silence a people.