The forgotten story of a young man whose life — and death — reveal one of the darkest chapters of colonial history.

History often remembers kings, generals, and conquerors. It rarely remembers the individuals crushed under the wheels of empire. William Lanne, often called “King Billy” or “the last Tasmanian man,” is one such figure — a man whose life became a symbol of survival, whose death became a battlefield for scientific exploitation, and whose story continues to force the world to confront the cruelty of colonialism.

Though he lived only about 30 years, his story spans continents, scientific institutions, churches, governments, and the painful disappearance of an entire people.

This article tells the full story: the man, the myth, the politics, and the shameful post-mortem battle for his body.

A Child of a Vanishing Nation

William Lanne was born around 1835, during the final years of the Palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) people’s resistance against British colonization. By the time he was a boy, disease, dispossession, massacres, and forced relocation had devastated his people to the brink of extinction.

Unlike many earlier Tasmanian Aboriginal leaders, William did not grow up on ancestral lands. Instead, he spent most of his childhood living in government-run island settlements — Wybalenna on Flinders Island, later Oyster Cove — places that were meant to be “protection zones” but in reality became sites of cultural erasure, isolation, and enforced dependency.

He was one of the last surviving children of the Palawa community.

A Life Between Worlds

From an early age, Lanne stood out. He was intelligent, curious, able to navigate both Indigenous and colonial worlds with surprising ease. By age 13, the government sent him to a school in Hobart — one of the few Aboriginal children ever educated in a colonial classroom.

As a young man, he worked various jobs in European society:

a sailor on whaling ships (where he earned genuine respect from European crew)
a labourer in Hobart
an interpreter and guide for colonial officials

Sailors often described him as friendly, confident, physically strong, and capable of adapting to the harsh conditions of sea life. He developed a reputation as someone who could blend into colonial society without losing warmth or humour.

This made him beloved among common townsfolk — and envied or objectified by colonial elites.

The Title: King of the Tasmanians

By the late 1860s, the Aboriginal population of Tasmania had collapsed catastrophically. Colonial newspapers sensationalized this disappearance, portraying Aboriginal Tasmanians as a “dying race.”

When Truganini, Fanny Cochrane Smith, and a handful of others remained, the press latched onto the idea of giving the last remaining Tasmanian man a symbolic monarchy.

They dubbed William Lanne “King Billy.”

He never claimed the title. It was given to him by colonial authorities, who turned him into a tragic symbol — part curiosity, part public spectacle.

To surviving Aboriginal communities, William was not a “king,” but a brother whose existence represented both survival and heartbreaking loss.

The Tragedy of His Final Days

In 1869, William Lanne passed away at the age of about 34, most likely from a gastrointestinal infection or cholera-like disease — illnesses that had plagued Aboriginal communities since European arrival.

His death should have been a moment of mourning.
Instead, it became one of the most shameful episodes in scientific history.

THE POST-MORTEM BATTLE: A BODY TREATED LIKE AN OBJECT

William’s body was not allowed to rest.

The Royal Society of Tasmania and the Hobart Anatomical School fought over ownership of his corpse — each wanting to claim “the last Tasmanian man” as a scientific trophy.

What followed was grotesque.

Desecration in the Name of Science

The Royal Society secretly stole his body from the morgue.
His skull was removed, supposedly to be preserved for study as a “specimen of a dying race.”
Surgeons at the Anatomical School retaliated by breaking into the coffin to remove the rest of his skeleton, replacing it with random bones to hide the theft.
His hands and feet were cut off to prevent identification.

It became a macabre tug-of-war, played out like a morbid scandal in the newspapers.

This was not science — it was colonial obsession with proving racial hierarchies, reducing a human being to anatomy.

Why Was His Body Fought Over?

In the 19th century, European scientists were obsessed with “racial classification,” convinced that measuring skulls and bones could rank human groups from “primitive” to “advanced.”

To them, the Palawa were not people with culture and history — they were “data,” “evidence,” and “specimens.”

The horrific treatment of William Lanne’s remains reflected this ideology.

His death signified, to the colonial establishment, the final chance to collect the physical remains of a people they had nearly annihilated.

It is one of the most chilling examples of scientific racism in Australia’s history.

The Funeral That Wasn’t

William’s funeral proceeded with military ceremony, but almost nothing inside the coffin belonged to him. His grave became a symbol of how the colony preferred a “tidy ending” to the Aboriginal story — the last man dead, buried, and controlled.

But Tasmanian Aboriginal people did not die out. Their descendants live today, culturally strong, tracing lineages through women whom colonial society erased or ignored.

The Myth of “Extinction” — And Why It’s Wrong

For generations, history books falsely claimed Tasmanian Aboriginal people were “extinct.” This myth was convenient for colonial governments — it erased responsibility for genocide by declaring the victims gone.

But the truth is clear:
Tasmanian Aboriginal communities survived through their daughters, granddaughters, and families, especially through the women whom colonial records often tried to ignore.

William Lanne was not the “last Tasmanian.”
He was the last surviving Oyster Cove Aboriginal man — one branch of a much larger, living community.

The narrative that his death marked extinction was an act of colonial propaganda.

The Fight for Repatriation and Justice

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Tasmanian Aboriginal groups began a long struggle to recover the stolen remains of their ancestors from museums and scientific institutions.

William Lanne’s remains became a center of this effort.

Much of his body was eventually tracked down, though some parts were lost forever due to 19th-century tampering. The repatriation process — symbolic and literal — helped restore dignity long denied.

This ongoing fight is not only about bones; it is about memory, sovereignty, and acknowledgement of harm.

A Global Lesson: When Science Loses Its Humanity

Lanne’s story is not unique. Across the 1800s, Indigenous bones were stolen from Africa, the Americas, Oceania, and Asia to fill European museums and laboratories.

But William’s case stands out because it symbolized the end of a people in the colonial imagination — and because the desecration of his body was carried out in public, with newspapers treating it like entertainment.

His story forces the world to confront uncomfortable truths:

How science has been used to justify racism.
How colonial powers stripped Indigenous people of both land and dignity.
How individuals become symbols in narratives they never chose.
How history erases realities to preserve national pride.

The Man Behind the Myth

Lost beneath the tragedy is the actual human being:

A child who grew up witnessing his culture disappear around him.
A teenager who learned to navigate two worlds.
A young man respected by sailors for his strength and humour.
A symbol created by others, yet remembered today as a survivor, not a king.

He was not a relic.
He was a human being — intelligent, charismatic, and caught between forces much larger than himself.

Legacy: Why William Lanne Matters Today

In the era of global discussions about decolonization, stolen artifacts, repatriation, and Indigenous rights, William Lanne’s story feels painfully current.

His life reminds the world that:

Historical injustices are not “past.” Their consequences live in communities today.
Indigenous people were not “vanishing races” — they were targeted populations.
Scientific institutions must reckon with the violence carried out in the name of “research.”
Memory is a political act — who gets remembered, how, and why matters deeply.

To Tasmanian Aboriginal communities, William Lanne is not a tragic relic.
He is a symbol of endurance, a reminder that people survive even when history tries to bury them.

Conclusion

William Lanne’s story is a lesson in dignity stripped and dignity reclaimed. It is a story of a young man turned into a symbol by forces beyond his control. And it is a reminder that the wounds of colonialism do not fade — they must be confronted, spoken aloud, and repaired.

Today, when his name appears in historical debates, museum discussions, or Indigenous rights movements, it is not as “King Billy,” the last of anything.
It is as William Lanne, a human being who stood at the crossroads of a nation’s darkest transformation — and whose story the world is finally beginning to tell with honesty.

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William Lanne: The Last Tasmanian Man and the Tragedy the World Forgot