The significance of the racist term ‘King Billy’ and the sovereignty protest of Jimmy Clements and John Noble in 1927¹

James McDonald

In May 1927, Wiradjuri men George John Noble (Ooloogan) and Jimmy Clements (Nangar/Yangar) walked about 105 miles (170 km) to Canberra from Brungle Reserve (near Tumut) to protest their sovereign rights and speak with the Duke of York (later, King George VI) at the opening of the provisional Parliament House.² In the press, Clements was usually described as ‘King Billy’.³ This article discusses the development of this forgotten, racist term; presents a collective biography of men called ‘King Billy’; and asks why the term was used either by, or for, Clements.

‘King Billy’ as a racist stereotype in Australia

By the 1850s in Australia, ‘King Billy’ had become a generic appellation used to describe and dehumanise an Aboriginal male Elder, similar to the racist imagery of ‘Jim Crow’ in the United States (US) for African Americans, or the ‘Paddy’ caricature for an Irishman in the English press.⁴ ‘King Billy’ may not have been as widely known as its two international counterparts but, for whatever reason, it was commonly used in Australia from at least the 1850s to the early 1940s. It then fell out of use.

Bill Wannan, in his dictionary of Australian folklore, defined King Billy in 1979 as:

‘King Billy’: (Australia, obsolete) Imaginary king of the Australian aboriginal people.⁵

However, as the term was also sometimes used in non-Aboriginal contexts, it is necessary to be mindful of the situation in which the sobriquet occurs. For example, the Protestant hero William of Orange could be referred to as ‘King Billy’, and the day he won his victory over Jacobite forces at the Boyne in 1690 was colloquially celebrated as ‘King Billy’s Day’ in the British dominions.⁶ In the 1830s, before the Aboriginal version evolved, it could even be applied affectionately to King William IV of Britain (reigned: 1830–37).⁷

Billy Hughes, prime minister of Australia between 1915 and 1923, was occasionally described as ‘King Billy’ by his detractors.⁸ Another politician of the early 1920s, James Stopford, Queensland’s home secretary, was sometimes called ‘King Billy of Barambah’. This example seems to have arisen from Stopford’s work with Aboriginal people in that district, and was likely intended to be read as inferring on him the status of a ‘white’ King Billy—that is, a white Aboriginal. In other contexts, Stopford was known as ‘Stoppy’, a more logical nickname.⁹ William Affleck, the Gundaroo storekeeper and member of the New South Wales (NSW) Legislative Assembly for Yass Plains (1894–1901), said: ‘I was mixed up in nearly everything established in Gundaroo and had the title of King Billy daubed onto me.’¹⁰ There were other non-Aboriginal men with the epithet, such as a reviled Sydney land speculator who was called ‘King Billy Guzzlehard’. The name was also popularly applied in the 1920s to pets and racehorses.¹¹

Notwithstanding these examples, ‘King Billy’ was predominantly used as a demeaning racial stereotype for older Aboriginal men, typically those who were depicted as claiming a regal title, suggesting delusions of grandeur, and was sometimes linked to the false ‘last of their tribe’ trope. The cartoons reproduced in this article make the ridicule clear.

Prominent historical King Billys of the nineteenth century

The term seems to have gained popularity because of the number of historical King Billys from the early colonial period whose representations by Europeans, collectively, appear to have led to the stereotype. I discuss a number of these ‘historical’ King Billy candidates below.

The earliest example of which I am aware comes from Queensland. This is Billy Billy, the father of Molrooben, ‘chief of the Kirkham tribe’ north of Brisbane, reported in 1838. But he may not have been known as ‘King Billy’ specifically.¹² Another early example in Queensland was King Billy at Kilcoy Station, identified in 1842 as one of the warriors who speared two shepherds in retaliation for the deliberate murder by arsenic of 60 Aboriginal people. He is sometimes confused with another King Billy, who was shot by native police while asleep in 1884 at Bar Burrum (Wondecla).¹³

Pre-eminent among the historical King Billys was William ‘King Billy’ Lanne(y), Truganini’s husband, who died in Tasmania in 1869. He, too, was described erroneously as the ‘last of his race’.¹⁴ It is widely believed that the famous King Billy pine (Athrotaxis selaginoides), a conifer endemic to Tasmania, was named after Lanney, adding to his renown and the general familiarity with the name, regardless of how tenuous the botanical connection might be.

Back on the mainland, in NSW, lived ‘King Billy Boomee’, who complained to Singleton magistrates at a blanket issue in 1847 that, by ‘lending’ blankets only for the winter months, the issue was, in fact, an act of ‘gammon’ (trickery).¹⁵ Another King Billy travelled south to perform a corroboree for Melbournians at the Queen’s Theatre in 1856.¹⁶ He was probably a Ngarigo or Wiradjuri man, as he was described as being from the Murrumbidgee. Alternatively, he could be the Yuin man of that name from Braidwood, described as the ‘last chief of the Braidwood tribe’, who wore a kingplate and died at Goulburn Hospital in the 1870s after a visit to Randwick.¹⁷ There was also ‘King Billy’ Gamin, otherwise known as ‘William Wentworth’—most probably after the expeditioner and reformist barrister—who was said to have discovered gold at Pigeon House Mountain (inland from Ulladulla), although the claim was unable to be verified by prospectors in the 1850s and 60s.¹⁸

Over the Murray in Victoria, there was ‘Old King Billy Billy’, who stole a mob of sheep in the Wimmera and was tracked and arrested by Mr Hamilton and a contingent of native police. He was charged in Melbourne in 1844.¹⁹ At Meredith, between Ballarat and Geelong, a King Billy was reported in 1857 as disapproving of a corroboree due to the drinking associated with it; later arrested for drunkenness, he was a suspect in the murder of an Aboriginal woman who had described him as ‘no good’ on the eve of her murder in 1859.²⁰ This seems to be the same King Billy who appeared in a corroboree at Carngham, west of Ballarat, in 1858, after which he was seriously injured by a woman in the band.²¹ It may also be the same King Billy who was lampooned in an account of a fishing trip near Bendigo in which he likened the head of one of the catch to the profile of a local doctor.²² At Beechworth in 1859, another King Billy, wearing a kingplate indicating that he was from the ‘Barwidgee tribe’, was recorded. He was associated with Merriman, the alleged leader of the ‘Faithfull massacre’ near Benalla in 1838.²³

Still in Victoria, there was King Billy Turnbull of the Heywood district, who was acquitted of killing King Dick in 1860.²⁴ There was also King William of Tallock Bullock, who died near Ballan in 1860, and who seems also to have been known as ‘Billy’.²⁵ At Loddon Mission (near Bendigo), there was Lerimurneen, or King Billy Logan, possibly a close relative of a second King Billy, who proposed imposing a toll on Loddon Bridge over his people’s ancient waterway in 1872, thereby exercising his land-and-water rights.²⁶ But this last example is probably well after the period that first influenced the use of the name. Another late Victorian example is ‘King Billy Gore (Barrabool tribe)’, whose grave inscription at Geelong was recorded by the controversial museum curator Aldo Massola.²⁷

Hence, there were plenty of historical King Billys in the mid-nineteenth century. In my view, the common use of the name led to the development of a generic term in the later decades of that century, usually in derogatory contexts to describe a tragi-comic male Elder by Europeans. Hence, Tommy McRae, a Kwatkwat Elder, was given the ‘King Billy’ title in c. 1885, when he drew a series of silhouette-style sketches of Aboriginal subjects for a travelling salesman, named Lefaivre, at Lake Moodemere, near Corowa.²⁸ There was also Mullawallah (Frank Wilson), in the Ballarat district, who was often called ‘King Billy’, as were two Ballarat men before him.²⁹ Increasingly, in this manner, we see the title applied to men who did not have a William/Billy forename.

Three early instances of ‘King Billy’ being used as a racist stereotype

In South Australia, there was a ‘King Billy’ of the Torrens River, Adelaide, who traded a prized waddy (wooden club) for food in 1848 and was often in touch with the same Europeans thereafter, receiving an annual blanket dole. He was believed to have been named in honour of William IV (who had died in 1837).³⁰ Although this name was recorded in reminiscences published in 1921, I suspect he is the same man awarded the ‘distinction entitled King Billy’ who presided over a feast of a whole ox roasted by Europeans for his band at the Port Adelaide Regatta in November 1847.³¹ What is significant is that, in this instance, ‘King Billy’ seems to have been a generic title given to him at the feast, as recorded in the contemporaneous report, and may have had nothing to do with his actual name in language or English. It may be the first recorded instance of the name as a term of characterisation.³²

Another early contender, and one that is clearly an example of generic use, comes in an article theorising about eugenics, written in 1854 by an unnamed Bendigo correspondent for the Melbourne Banner:

Some future Cooper [in this sense, a repairer] may probably transform King Billy, now in this locality, into a hero possessing martial prowess and eloquently expatiating on the injustice of the whites and the wrongs of his race. The sentimental, in future ages will shed tears of unavailing regret over the graves of the Australian aborigines—apparently doomed to extinction at no very remote period. Intermarriages with the whites would amalgamate them with the Anglo-Saxon race and put an end to their vagrant and idle habits.³³

A third example comes in 1858, in a florid letter to the editor of the Age by a correspondent calling themselves ‘False Prophet’. The letter is on the topic of religious-based factional politics on the eve of the Upper House elections. It contrasts the Aboriginal ‘King Billy’ with the Williamites of the other ‘King Billy’ (William of Orange) and goes on to compare the Aboriginal King Billy specifically with ‘Jim Crow’ in the US: ‘as political Jim Crows are seldom respected by any party, Mr. A Beckett is not likely to sustain much loss from the jumping about of King Billy!’³⁴

In Australian literature

The first example in fictional writing I can find comes two years later, in 1860, in a short story titled ‘A Legend of Port Phillip’. The story is set during the violence of the Frontier War in which Aboriginal people were massacred and reprisals against the Europeans followed. In it, King Billy is cast as a suspected kidnapper of the pastoralist Tom Courtney’s infant daughter, Clara, from her garden on a station in Melbourne’s hinterland in 1836 (shortly after ‘settlement’). He was tracked by ‘natives of the Werribee [sic] tribe’ and three constables. They travelled through Dandenong and into the Victorian bush, until King Billy was shot as he attempted to spear Courtney. The child was retrieved.³⁵ In this representation, there is nothing comical, as found in later representations of the King Billy character. This King Billy is presented to European audiences as malevolent.

King Billy’s representation by the bush bards is more according to script. The Bulletin of 26 January 1895 included a comic rendition by Banjo Paterson of a lazy ‘King Billy’ of the Mooki River (between Quirindi and Gunnedah in NSW) in a poem titled ‘Johnson’s Antidote’. King Billy’s characterised indolence results in Johnson, obsessed with finding a snakebite cure, undertaking a wild-goose chase that leads to the death of his faithful dog.³⁶

In 1901, Henry Lawson, in ‘A Bush Publican’s Lament’, includes the following racist rant from the title character in the story:

An’ supposen Ole King Billy an’ his ole black gin comes round at holiday time and squats on the verander, an’ blarneys an’ wheedles and whines and argues like a hundred Jews an’ ole Irishwomen put tergether, an’ accuses me o’ takin’ his blarsted country from him, an’ makes me an’ the missus laugh; an’ we gives him a bottl’er rum an’ a bag of grub ter get rid of him an’ his rotten ole scarecrow tribe—It all tells up. I was allers soft on the blacks, an’, beside, a ole gin nursed me an’ me mother when I was born, an’ saved me blessed life—not that that mounts to much. But it all tells up, an’ I got me licence ter pay. An’ some bloody skunk goes an’ informs on me for supplyin’ the haboriginalls with intossicatin’ liquor, an’ I have ter pay a fine an’ risk me licence. But what’s a man ter do?³⁷

There is another treatment of King Billy by Lawson in a relatively obscure essay titled ‘King Billy’ that is held in manuscript form in the State Library of Victoria’s Lothian Papers. It also presents a lazy and dishevelled old Aboriginal man in a comic context.³⁸

In a satirical poem by a correspondent to Melbourne’s Herald under the nom de plume of ‘DEN’, a generic ‘King Billy’, in this case ‘the monarch’ of the Canberra region, is used to contrast the ludicrous suggestion—though one that was somehow under serious consideration at the time—that the visiting Duke of York be given the Australian title, ‘Duke of Canberra’, thereby, according to DEN, ‘deposing’ King Billy as the legitimate monarch of Canberra. The poem was published two months before Clements’s protest and, almost certainly, was not referring to Clements specifically.³⁹

As a term used by the press

The use of ‘King Billy’ as derogatory slang to describe a stereotypical Aboriginal male Elder went beyond poetry and doggerel, appearing in a range of newspaper articles and cartoons up to the 1920s.⁴⁰ Subeditors used it in titles heading up articles on a range of Aboriginal topics. For example, there was ‘Exit King Billy’ for two Illawarra ‘kings’ (Budd Billy and Micky Johnson), covering their demise and the alleged ‘extinction’ of Aboriginal people in NSW.⁴¹ ‘King Billy and George Street’ was the title of a descriptive piece in March 1927 on Aboriginal-themed (but white-designed) street decorations being prepared in Sydney to welcome the Duke of York’s party before it travelled to Canberra in May.⁴² And ‘King Billy’s Cousin’ was the label atop a photograph of a life-sized Hawaiian model in an exhibit being installed at the Sydney Museum.⁴³ In each of these examples, King Billy was the shorthand means of referring to a male Elder or, sometimes, to all Aboriginal people collectively.

The Sun newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne were particularly fond of the double entendre in a mixed-race context, applying King Billy as a nickname for the former prime minister, Billy Hughes. His home at Lindfield in 1924 was described as ‘King Billy’s Gunyah’.⁴⁴ Another article bemoaned the absence of any bronze sculptures of an Aboriginal King Billy, before deriding one that had recently been cast in Ballarat by (William) Wallace Anderson. This was, of course, a bust of the other King Billy, Hughes, ‘the noblest Roman of them all’.⁴⁵ An article on similarities in the blood samples of Europeans and Aboriginal peoples was titled ‘Brothers in Blood: Mr Hughes and King Billy’.⁴⁶ And, in one discourse reporting a boomerang gifted by a ‘King Billy’ near Coranderrk Mission to Hughes, the prime minister was demoted to ‘Plain Billy’ to help distinguish the two.⁴⁷ These examples can only be understood if the term can be used for both the Aboriginal stereotype and the erstwhile prime minister.

Depictions by cartoonists, artists, and animators

King Billy also appears in cartoons that appear similar in style to images of Jim Crow in the US. For example, in 1900, the artist Benjamin Edwin Minns drew a cartoon for the Bulletin in which a barefoot King Billy raises his top hat to a promenading European woman and says: ‘You mustn’t look at me like that—I’m a married man’ (Figure 1).⁴⁸ The joke rests squarely on a sense of ridicule associated with the King Billy figure.

Will Dyson, in Melbourne’s Herald in 1928, drew a ‘King Billy’ representing the Kulin people negotiating with John Batman over land, which he compared to a land deal 100 years later in Dandenong, at the time the subject of criticism in the press (Figure 2). The non-Aboriginal figure is Henry Stephen Bailey, the Victorian politician responsible for land. Of course, Dyson’s date is askew, as the Batman document was not ‘signed’ until 1835.⁴⁹ While it is possible that Dyson was thinking of Billibellary, one of the headmen (ngurungaeta) of the Woiwurrung people and a ‘signatory’ of Batman’s ‘treaty’, he was not generally known as ‘Billy’. Moreover, given the lack of historical veracity of the cartoon overall, it would seem unlikely that Dyson had ever heard of Billibellary.⁵⁰ Hence, it is much more likely that Dyson was referencing the stereotype.

Figure 1: Cartoon by Benjamin Edwin Minns.

Source: Bulletin, 22 December 1900, 10.

Figure 2: Will Dyson’s cartoon.

Source: Herald (Melbourne), 18 September 1928, 4.

Another racist depiction from 1928 is a cartoon by Smith’s Weekly’s Stan Cross, which accompanied a story by a satirist writing under the joke pen-name, Guy Rope (Figure 3).⁵¹ It refers to a ‘lazy’ King Billy of the Richmond River in NSW who is rooted in old ways and is described as an ‘unconscious humorist’—in other words, a laughing-stock. There is the possibility that it is based on a real individual, but it seems likely that the tale is invented. Even if there was a real person behind the story, ‘Guy Rope’ was relying on the generic ‘King Billy’ to avoid revealing the man’s identity.

These depictions by newspaper cartoonists and artists are all derogatory, showing aged, barefoot men, dishevelled, but wearing a top hat. The same image crept into early animation too. As late as 1939, a simian King Billy with hat and kingplate was the central character in an animated film titled King Billy’s First Car drawn by Melbourne cartoonist, Richard Arthur ‘Dick’ Ovendon.⁵² It was commissioned by Shell Australia to contrast the modern motor car with a comic, animal-built and powered contraption driven by King Billy. The racism is on a par with some of the worst Jim Crow ape-like depictions seen in the US.⁵³

Figure 3: Stan Cross’s cartoon shows King Billy giving a woman an apron full of witchety grubs when she was expecting berries.

Source: Smith’s Weekly, 18 February 1928, 23.

Disambiguation: Historical King Billys of the 1920s

Before we look at the application of the term in relation to Jimmy Clements in 1927, we need to identify other individuals in the 1920s attracting the same description. There were at least eight other Aboriginal men given the King Billy moniker who were contemporary with Clements. This is important, not only to avoid confusion but also to understand how commonly the term was applied to living individuals at that time.

1. King Billy of Jondaryan, between Dalby and Toowoomba, Queensland. He claimed to be aged 94 in 1920 and performed corroborees for ‘pennies’ and food.⁵⁴
2. King Billy of Dubbo Mission, NSW. This was Tommy Kincheler, who died in 1920, aged about 88.⁵⁵
3. King Billy of Utakarra (Geraldton), or ‘Monarch of the Victoria District, WA’. He died in 1926.⁵⁶
4. King Billy, also known as ‘Combardlo (Combadello) Billy’ or ‘King of Moree’ in NSW. He was active in the early 1920s.⁵⁷ This seems to be the same individual as ‘King Billy of Benarba Mission’, at Garah, near Moree, who attended one of Jimmy Sharman’s early boxing shows.⁵⁸
5. King Billy of Trida, between Ivanhoe and Hillston, NSW. He was active in the early 1920s.⁵⁹
6. King Billy, who was William King, of Cairns, Queensland. He was acquitted of murdering an Aboriginal man named Cecil who had sexually assaulted William’s spouse, Kitty, in 1927.⁶⁰
7. King Billy Winfood, who viewed from a rooftop the procession of the Duke of York, travelling through Sydney’s streets in March 1927.⁶¹
8. King Billy of La Perouse in Sydney, renowned for his boomerang displays, which brought a reasonable income from tourists.⁶²

A ninth figure may be the King Billy of Orange, NSW, who is recorded as running annual corroboree-style performances for Europeans. However, I think this may be Clements, given his close connection to Orange. The report in Brisbane’s Catholic Advocate relating to July 1927, may be a very late visit by Clements, who died the following month at Queanbeyan.⁶³

As demonstrated, from 1848 until the mid-twentieth century, the generic and derogatory term ‘King Billy’ was widespread and would have been readily understood by most Australians as denoting a delusional, old Aboriginal man calling himself a ‘king’ and/or ‘the last of his tribe’. Physically, he was often characterised as lazy, dishevelled and barefooted, sometimes with a top hat and kingplate, and sometimes smoking.

The application of a regal title in 1927: Ridicule versus respect

To white Australians, most of whom would have seen themselves as occupying the apex of a supposed racial hierarchy, the title ‘king’ as applied to Aboriginal people was hardly a matter of dignity or respect. Instead, it signalled derision: think of the ‘beggar king’, ‘pirate king’ or ‘monkey king’ in literature and art, in which dressing up a perceived lesser human in regal trappings exaggerated their imagined inherent shortcomings and the incongruity of the role for comic effect. Such a ploy was obvious in the 1939 Ovendon animation.

A clear example of such racism in relation to the protest of Clements and Noble in 1927 is found in the description of a lavish history pageant performed at Orange on Boxing Day in 1928. Clements had been a well-known figure in that town, and his father, Billy Lambert, had been described as ‘king of the Orange Tribe’.⁶⁴ The Boxing Day event, billed as ‘The Great Procession’, was intended to celebrate the town’s history. The march included members of the Light Horse, brass bands, marching bands, and townsfolk dressed up as ‘explorers’, ‘early settlers’, ‘diggers’ from the nearby Ophir goldfield and ‘mounted troopers’. There were women riding side-saddle, a contingent of soldiers, teamsters, a bullocky, railway workers and early motor cars. Following a party of ‘young aboriginals’ (white children in blackface) and a man dressed as Ned Kelly, two white boys in blackface, pulled along by a goat cart, parodied Clement’s and Noble’s protest in Canberra 18 months before:

‘King Billy’ and his dusky court, in a ramshackle conveyance had hoisted a placard stating that it was a long way from Canberra to Orange, but they had got here. The McGowan boys and their black face courtiers had difficulty in persuading their goat to draw a smart little cart through the cheering crowds and long before the showground was reached, the animal stubbornly refused to go any further. The Salvation Army Silver Band played selections as it marched by, followed by the Mosman branch Navy-League Cadets.⁶⁵

The organisers exploited the double-barrelled satire of King Billy being borne by a (King) billy goat in reference to the famous Canberra journey and protest of Clements and Noble.

The same sort of racism is evident in a cartoon by Oswald Pryor in Adelaide’s News in September 1927, reacting to the news of a recent strike of Aboriginal workers at Lake Tyers; clearly, the illustrator had no inkling of issues such as stolen wages and life under the Protection Acts.⁶⁶ Pryor presents the issue as a dispute over a tobacco dole and the corruption of ‘simple minds’ by dangerous leftist ideas. As part of his caricature of Aboriginal activism, he depicts Clements (top centre) as ‘King Billy’, identified through his kingplate, seeking ‘the overthrow of the monarchy’—a clear reference to Clements’s protest with Noble in May (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Oswald Pryor’s cartoon showing King Billy, top centre.

Source: News, 15 September 1927, 7.

Given the racism inherent in such stereotyping, we should ask why Clements accepted the name, if indeed he did; and whether he was aware of, and cared about, what the papers were saying.

In reality, Aboriginal people had little choice about what the press called them. Clements’s companion, John Noble, was given a similarly demeaning nickname: ‘Marvellous’—apparently in recognition of his fondness for using that adjective when conversing with Europeans, as if he were a simpleton.⁶⁷ Clements’s own name in language was Nangar/Yangar. In English, his personal name was Jimmy—not Bill, William or anything similar.

I imagine that Clements accepted the ‘King Billy’ description, as he was trying to make the point that, as a ‘king’ of one sovereign people, he had the right to converse with the representative of the monarch of another sovereign people.⁶⁸ As Richard Broome explains: ‘Aboriginal people not only appropriated these regal titles to gain power and status in the eyes of whites, but also to confirm their traditional power.’⁶⁹ This is what I think Clements was doing, irrespective of the disdain. He may have thought that the British royals would be more open to a dialogue on human rights and sovereignty than their antipodean representatives had ever been. It was an opportunity to escalate the conversation to the top of the constitutional hierarchy. As such, it was a brave and strategic move.

Sovereignty, kingplates and the mantle of leadership

Another aspect of the title ‘king’ applied to Aboriginal people that needs to be considered is the history of the ‘kingplates’ (alternatively called breastplates or gorgets) that were awarded to certain individuals who were recognised by Europeans as ‘leaders’ and/or the last so-called ‘full blood’ representatives of their ‘tribe’—now understood as extinction and assimilation propaganda. This was most famously applied to Truganini, her husband ‘King Billy’ Lanney, and, in the Canberra–Queanbeyan district, Nellie Hamilton, Yibai-malian (Murray Jack) and Mickey of the Walgalu speakers.⁷⁰ Even Clements himself was described as the ‘last of his race’ and as a ‘King of Canberra’.⁷¹

Kingplates were usually made of brass in a crescent shape and hung from the neck with a leather lace or chain. They were first issued by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, c. 1816, at the first ‘native feast’ at Parramatta to which leaders of Aboriginal bands who were cooperating with government were invited.⁷² They continued to be issued to Aboriginal people over the years under a variety of circumstances and in locations throughout the colony, including the Canberra region.⁷³ Kingplates are important sources of information in helping to determine which individuals, at a particular point in time, were most closely engaged with Europeans and had at least some degree of recognition. While the recipients are sometimes described as being ‘collaborators’, there is evidence that many resistance fighters also received them. Onyong of the Namadgi is a prime example in colonial Canberra.⁷⁴

Charles MacAlister, reminiscing about the kingplates issued in the contiguous Goulburn district during his lifetime, made the following claim:

Those of the Aborigines who obtained the ‘half-moon’ brass plates issued to some of the more noted chiefs, were very proud of those marks of favour from the ‘big pfella guberment’.⁷⁵

Clements does not appear to have ever worn a kingplate. Despite Pryor’s depiction of him with one in his 1927 cartoon, kingplates were more common in earlier times.⁷⁶ Nevertheless, Clements’s connection to Hamilton and her prominence in the Canberra district may have led him to believe that a royal title was not only appropriate but also legitimate for him.⁷⁷ Given this, he may even have believed that the Duke was open to giving him an audience when Australian leaders had not. Thus, he may have welcomed the ‘King Billy’ title, believing it would bring him greater authority, in line with the gravitas he exercised among his own people, and see him treated with respect.

When Clements and Noble were interviewed by a Daily Telegraph journalist at Queanbeyan after the opening ceremony, Clements stated: ‘I have opened your Parliament House on my own ground … now you can go and look at it.’⁷⁸ This statement shows that Clements had assumed the mantle of leadership and was claiming his sovereign rights. A patronisingly worded article in the following day’s Argus supports this view. The journalist reported that Clements ‘calls himself King Billy and … claims sovereign rights to the Federal Territory’.⁷⁹ For the journalist, this ‘humorous incident’ was laughable. Yet, looking past the prejudice of the press, it provides firm evidence of Clements’s intent. It was a brave protest that he and Noble mounted and one that they cleverly constructed for maximum impact.

There was nothing accidental about what Clements and Noble did at the opening of Parliament House in 1927 (Figure 5). The significance of their protest was largely lost on the press, who presented Clements as a figure of bathos. In depicting him as King Billy, the press drew on the history of derision that this collective biography of ‘King Billys’ has outlined. For Clements, however, the title meant something else. If, as seems likely, Clements was using it himself, it was a clever stratagem designed to gain the attention of the Duke and add weight to his claim of sovereignty.

It is fitting that the two Wiradjuri friends, Clements and Noble, forced the issue of Aboriginal human rights and sovereignty to prominence on the first day of the operation of Australia’s Parliament House. It is important to remember that the long history of Aboriginal protest at that location—the Tent Embassy in 1972 and many other First Nations protests and representations that continue to this day—began with them.

Figure 5: Jimmy Clements and his three dogs in the foreground of the provisional Parliament House, May 1927, looking north-west with Black Mountain in the background.

Source: Unknown photographer. Image donated to the National Library of Australia (NLA) by the Bluett family. NLA: 3547995.

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1. 1 Please note that this article includes terms of racial vilification, racist images and descriptions quoted from historical documents and newspapers that will be offensive. It also contains images of deceased Aboriginal people. I thank my Wiradjuri niece, Michelle McDonald, for proofreading and Wiradjuri friends and members of the Clements and Noble families for information, particularly Dean Freeman. Daniel King, director of the documentary Her Name is Nellie (2023), also shared valuable information. The two anonymous referees provided me with valuable feedback that enhanced the argument. I address the question of who the clergyman was who spoke in Clements’s defence at the protest in a forthcoming article in another journal. See J. McDonald, ‘Who Defended Jimmy Clements at His Sovereignty Protest in 1927? Everything Points West’, Canberra Historical Journal, 04 (March 2025), 9–17. For Clements’s origins and early life, see M. Bennett, Pathfinders: A History of Aboriginal Trackers in NSW (Sydney: NewSouth, 2020), 36–7, 281n13.

2. 2 See Laurie Bamblett, ‘Nangar (c. 1848–1927)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published online 2024, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nangar-33736/text42227; Laurie Bamblett and Wendy Bunn, ‘Ooloogan (c. 1840–1928)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published online 2024, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ooloogan-33760/text42257. Clements’s name in language was first recorded in Australian Museum Magazine III, no. 4 (October–December 1927): 140. We do not know whether Clements followed the modern road in a circuitous northern loop or used the more direct traditional pathways. By road, it was about 169 kilometres (via Wee Jasper, as the Freeman family believe) even though, as the crow flies, Canberra is only 97 kilometres east of Brungle (see Canberra Times, 18 May 1968, 11). The pastoralists would have stopped them using a traditional pathway but, if not, they could have come through Tumut on the Ngunawal Alpine pathway to enter Canberra via Yarrangobilly and then followed the Walgalu Murrumbidgee route up to Queanbeyan, which is about 155 kilometres. For the ancient pathways, see P. R. Kabaila, High Country Footprints: Aboriginal Pathways and Movement in the High Country of Southeastern Australia (Canberra: Pirion Publishing, 2005), 115–18; J. McDonald, Canberra I: From Antiquity to the Invasion (Melbourne: Sorley Boy, 2023), 187, Map 12. Finally, note the confusion about the identity of the two protestors in the early histories and newspaper accounts. For example, they were said to have travelled from Cooma, not Brungle (e.g. L. Wigmore, Canberra: History of Australia’s National Capital [Canberra: Dalton Publishing Company, 1972], 101), and the two men were often confused with one another right up until the interest generated in the protest with the opening of the new Parliament House in 1987–88 (e.g. Canberra Times, 13 December 1987, 7; Canberra Times, 27 December 1987, 7; Canberra Times, 2 January 1988, 2; C. D. Coulthard-Clark, ‘The Aborigine Who Came to the Opening of the First Parliament House’, Canberra Historical Journal 21 [March 1988]: 26–7, referring to Canberra Times, 13 December 1987, 7; 27 December 1987, 7; 2 January 1988: 2).

3. 3 According to one newspaper report, Clements called himself King Billy (Argus [Melbourne], 11 May 1927, 19), but we should be wary of assuming that the application of the name was advocated by Clements himself. Noble was known as ‘Marvellous’, but that is part of the story of another paper I am writing as part of collection of essays compiled for the 2027 centenary of the opening of Parliament House in Canberra. That article will focus on the protest itself, the reactions to it and the deaths of Clements and Noble in 1927–28.

4. 4 For the meaning of Jim Crow in the US, see S. Kennedy, Jim Crow Guide (Paris, 1956).

5. 5 B. Wannan, Australian Folklore (Dee Why West: Lansdowne, 1979), 163. Christopher Lee is the only recent writer, to my knowledge, who has also noted the use of ‘King Billy’ as a ‘common derogatory title for Aboriginal men in the nineteenth century’. See C. Lee, ‘The Status of the Aborigine in the Writing of Henry Lawson: A Reconsideration’, The La Trobe Journal 70 (Spring): 79.

6. 6 See, for example, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 April 1856, 3; Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne), 10 July 1858, 4. This continued into the 1900s: Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta), 19 July 1922, 5; Southern Cross (Adelaide), 27 July 1923, 19.

7. 7 See, for example, Australian (Sydney), 29 July 1831, 4 (reprinted Hobart Town Courier, 6 August 1831, 4); cf. Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane), 21 May 1859, 2.

8. 8 Examples include Australian Worker (Sydney), 15 July 1920, 1; Mail (Adelaide), 4 November 1922, 2; Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 31 May 1924, 3; Sun (Sydney), 21 January 1926, 15; Sun (Sydney), 8 November 1924, 1 (reprinted Newcastle Sun, 10 November 1924, 1).

9. 9 Brisbane Courier, 1 October 1926, 6 (reprinted Western Champion [Barcaldine], 16 October 1926, 5). For Stopford’s career, see Carol Gistitin, ‘James Stopford (1878–1936)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1990, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stopford-james-8683/text15189.

10. 10 W. Affleck, Reminiscences in the Life of William Affleck (Sydney: R. Dey, Son and Co., 1916), 20.

11. 11 For the land investor, see Dungog Chronicle and Durham and Gloucester Advertiser, 29 September 1927, 3. There were plenty of billy goats with the name, of course. For an example of a show dog, see Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne), 20 March 1923, 10. For a racing horse, see Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 7 March 1928, 7.

12. 12 Australian (Sydney), 22 December 1838, 3.

13. 13 J. Drake, Queensland’s Frontier Wars (Tingalpa: Boolarong Press, 2021), 38–40 (the younger King Billy), 260 (the older King Billy).

14. 14 For Lanney, see L. Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines: A History since 1803 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2012), 246, 253, 255, 261–7, 319.

15. 15 Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 24 July 1847, 3 (reprinted Australian [Sydney], 27 July 1847, 4).

16. 16 Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer, 3 January 1856, 2. This King Billy may be the third husband of Walgalu-speaking leader of the Canberra–Queanbeyan district, ‘Queen’ Nellie Hamilton, but the timing is probably too early, and he was, in any case, more associated with the Braidwood district and Yuin bands.

17. 17 N. Ellis, Braidwood, Dear Braidwood: A History of Braidwood and District (Braidwood: N. N. & N. M. Ellis, 1989), 18.

18. 18 Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 17 September 1927, 19. Also see M. K. Organ, Illawarra and South Coast Aborigines 1770–1900, 1993, 230, ro.uow.edu.au/articles/report/Illawarra_and_South_Coast_Aborigines_1770-1900/27837813.

19. 19 Melbourne Courier, 4 August 1845, 2. There are two possibilities for ‘Mr Hamilton’. He may be Thomas Ferrier Hamilton, the soldier turned pastoralist at Gisborne who hunted a number of Aboriginal bands with native police during the Frontier Wars. See J. Ann Hone, ‘Thomas Ferrier Hamilton (1820–1905)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1972, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hamilton-thomas-ferrier-3704/text5809. However, as this Mr Hamilton was visiting Scotland for most of 1845, it is probably the pastoralist of the Wimmera who somehow received assistance from the native police. For his family, see R. Broome, Aboriginal Victorians: A History since 1800 (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2005), 60.

20. 20 Argus (Melbourne), 13 March 1857, 5 (reprinted Age [Melbourne], 14 March 1857, 6; Bendigo Advertiser, 27 March 1857, 3; Tasmanian Daily News, 28 March 1857, 3; North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser, 21 April 1857, 4); Star (Ballarat), 12 April 1858, 2 (reprinted Age [Melbourne], 13 April 1858, 6; Argus [Melbourne], 13 April 1858, 9, 11); Star (Ballarat), 23 September 1859, 2 (reprinted Argus [Melbourne], 24 September 1859, 5); cf. Bendigo Advertiser, 27 September 1859, 3.

21. 21 Star (Ballarat), 27 January 1858, 2. There was also a ‘King Billy’s Reef’ in the district, which may have been named after him. See Star (Ballarat), 21 November 1860, 2.

22. 22 Bendigo Advertiser, 20 May 1857, 2; cf. Argus (Melbourne), 12 April 1859, 5.

23. 23 Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth), 23 February 1859, 2 (reprinted, Age [Melbourne], 26 February 1859, 6). For the attack on George Faithful’s overlanders, see J. Connor, Australian Frontier Wars, 1788–1838 (Sydney: Sydney University of New South Wales Press, 2002), 117–21; Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 78.

24. 24 Argus (Melbourne), 23 October 1860, 7; Bendigo Advertiser, 24 October 1860, 3; Mount Alexander Mail, 26 October 1860, 6; Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser, 14 November 1860, 2. The reports confuse the ‘tribes’ of King Billy and King Dick.

25. 25 Argus, 5 December 1860, 4 (reprinted in Bendigo Advertiser, 6 December 1860, 3; Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, 8 December 1860, 3); cf. Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 103.

26. 26 For Lerimurneen, see G. Murray, Nicholls Biographies (Melbourne: City of Melbourne, 2007), 1. For the younger King Billy, see Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 102; B. Attwood, The Good Country: The Djadja Wurrung, the Settlers and the Protectors (Clayton: Monash University Press, 2023), 155, 183–4. If he is Lerimurneen’s son, then he may be Walpanumin John Logan, the grandfather of the famous, Sir Doug Nicholls. See, Richard Broome, ‘Sir Douglas Ralph (Doug) Nicholls’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 2012, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nicholls-sir-douglas-ralph-doug-14920/text26109.

27. 27 A. Massola, ‘Mortuary and Other Monuments to Aborigines’, Victorian Naturalist 87, no. 10 (1970): 299–305. Massola’s credibility as an anthropologist was never high, but it took a substantial blow when he was convicted of stealing rare coins in 1964, when he was a curator at the National Museum of Victoria (see McDonald, Canberra I, 286).

28. 28 Tommy McRae, sketchbook, c. 1885, AIATSIS collection: u236723. For the provenance, see H. C. Jankelson, ‘Tommy McRae: His Cultural Interaction with the Colonial World’ (PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2019), 64.

29. 29 J. Newton, ‘Remembering King Billy’, Journal of Australian Colonial History 3, no. 2 (2001): 61–80; J. Newton, Mullawallah: The Last King Billy of Ballarat (Ballarat: Ballarat Heritage Services, 2014), passim.

30. 30 Recalled much later in Observer (Adelaide), 11 June 1921, 40 (reprinted Register [Adelaide], 18 April 1921, 6.

31. 31 Adelaide Observer, 20 November 1847, 4 (repeated South Australian Register [Adelaide], 20 November 1847, 2).

32. 32 This man should not be confused with the earlier ‘King Billy’ who was killed by Thomas Donelly in March 1847 at Rivoli Bay (about 300 km south-east of Adelaide). See Adelaide Observer, 20 March 1847, 5.

33. 33 Banner (Melbourne), 17 March 1854, 10.

34. 34 Age (Melbourne), 18 September 1858, 4.

35. 35 In two parts in Mount Alexander Mail, 9 March 1860, 7; 16 March 1860, 7. The tale has all the characteristics of Frontier War conflict but has not been picked up (to my knowledge) in the Victorian Frontier War literature.

36. 36 On the derogatory representation of Aboriginal people in Paterson’s poetry, see P. Daley, ‘Banjo Paterson: Is His Reputation Just Too Big for His Country Boots?’ Guardian, 18 February 2014, theguardian.com/world/postcolonial/2014/feb/18/banjo-patersons-reputation-too-big-for-his-boots. Note that the poem is reprinted in full in Port Macquarie News and Hastings River Advocate, 5 February 1927, 4, with comments lamenting the loss of ancient Aboriginal knowledge since the arrival of the ‘invaders’. Hence, some empathy can occasionally accompany the derision.

37. 37 For Lawson’s representation of Aboriginal characters, see C. Lee, ‘The Status of the Aborigine in the Writing of Henry Lawson: A Reconstruction’, La Trobe Journal 70 (Spring 2020): 74–83.

38. 38 See Lee, ‘The Status of the Aborigine’, 79–81.

39. 39 Herald (Melbourne), 31 March 1927, 1.

40. 40 For examples, see Truth (Sydney), 7 June 1925, 10; Catholic Advocate (Brisbane), 14 July 1927, 31; Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 15 December 1927, 6 (‘King Billy from Arnheim [sic] Land’).

41. 41 Tweed Daily, 18 August 1923, 2.

42. 42 Sun (Sydney), 22 March 1927, 12.

43. 43 Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne), 29 August 1923, 12. This was a separate sculpture to the ones made by (George) Rayner Hoff, which had been commissioned by Ernest Wunderlich to be displayed as a group of three (Australian Museum Magazine III, no. 4 [October–December 1927]: 140), and which were featured in the NITV documentary directed by Daniel King (released 2023), titled Her Name Is Nanny Nellie. This other group of sculptures includes one of Jimmy Clements. The artist shown in the Sun News-Pictorial does not look like Hoff and, despite the sculpture being described as ‘Aboriginal’, it is actually of a Hawaiian Islander (see Australian Museum Magazine II, no. 3 [July–September 1924]: 86). For Hoff, Noel S. Hutchison, ‘George Rayner Hoff (1894–1937)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1983, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hoff-george-rayner-6696/text11553.

44. 44 Sun (Sydney), 8 November 1924, 1 (reprinted Newcastle Sun, 10 November 1924, 1). A gunyah, of course, is a bark shelter. See McDonald, Canberra I, 57–80.

45. 45 Sun (Sydney), 23 October 1921, 3. For Anderson’s career, see Ken Scarlett, ‘William Wallace Anderson (1888–1975)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1993, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/anderson-william-wallace-9362/text16441.

46. 46 Sun (Sydney), 27 August 1923, 7.

47. 47 Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne), 7 December 1922, 6.

48. 48 Bulletin, 22 December 1900, 10. For Minns, Jean Campbell, ‘Benjamin Edwin Minns (1863–1937)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1986, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/minns-benjamin-edwin-7601/text13277.

49. 49 For Dyson, see Vane Lindesay, ‘William Henry (Will) Dyson (1880–1938)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1981, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dyson-william-henry-will-6074/text10399. For Bailey, see L. J. Louis, ‘Henry Stephen Bailey (1876–1962)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1979, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bailey-henry-stephen-5095/text8507. For the Batman ‘treaty’, see Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 10; M. Stephens and F. Stewart-Muir, The Years of Terror: Banbu-Deen: Kulin and Colonists at Port Phillip, 1835–1851 (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2023), 13–15. But P. Coleman and L. Tanner, Cartoons of Australian History (Melbourne: Nelson, 1973), 176, argued that cartoons representing Aboriginal people tended to be sympathetic compared to the treatment of Asian and Pasifika peoples. They make no mention of the demeaning stereotyping, even though reproducing a ‘King Billy’ example from the Bulletin (1931) at p. 70.

50. 50 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 13, 32–4, 44–5, 122–3; R. Broome, Aboriginal Australians (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2019), 49, 75, 77–8, 80; Stephens and Stewart-Muir, The Years of Terror, 267–8; cf. B. Attwood and A. Markus, eds., The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights: A Documentary History (London: Routledge, 2020), 31, doi.org/10.4324/9781003118213.

51. 51 For Cross, see James Kemsley, ‘Stanley George Cross (1888–1977)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1993, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cross-stanley-george-9871/text17467.

52. 52 For Ovendon, see Chris Cunneen, ‘Richard Arthur (Dick) Ovenden (1897–1972)’, People Australia, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, accessed 20 March 2025, peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/ovenden-richard-arthur-dick-32988/text41107.

53. 53 See P. De Souza and S. Sambono, ‘Curator’s Notes: King Billy’s First Car (1939)’, Australian Screen, accessed 22 October 2025, aso.gov.au/titles/ads/king-billys-first-car/notes/.

54. 54 Murrumbidgee Irrigator (Leeton), 26 November 1920, 2.

55. 55 Tweed Daily, 25 June 1920, 4 (reprinted Richmond River Express and Casino Kyogle Advertiser, 2 July 1920, 6; Zeehan and Dundas Herald, 8 July 1920, 4; Coffs Harbour Advocate, 17 July 1920, 3). Also see Inverell Times, 6 July 1920, 3.

56. 56 Sunday Times (Perth), 25 July 1926, 8; Murchison Times (Cue), 1 October 1927, 4.

57. 57 Gloucester Advocate, 28 February 1920, 3.

58. 58 Inverell Times, 27 June 1924, 8.

59. 59 Port Macquarie News and Hastings River Advocate, 6 May 1922, 4 (reprinted Nambucca and Bellinger News, 19 May 1922, 2).

60. 60 Glenn Innes Examiner, 25 June 1927, 1; Recorder (Port Pirie), 27 June 1927, 1.

61. 61 Truth (Sydney), 27 March 1927, 1.

62. 62 Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 26 March 1927, 9; Sun (Sydney), 26 May 1927, 21 (with a photograph, in which his bald head rules out the possibility that this King Billy and Clements were the same man).

63. 63 Catholic Advocate (Brisbane), 14 July 1927, 31.

64. 64 Australian Museum Magazine III, no. 4 (October–December 1927): 140.

65. 65 Leader (Orange), 28 January 1929, 2. I suspect that the McGowan boys who drove the cart were the sons of Patrick James McGowan, undertaker, and Ethel Mary McGowan of 40 Hill Street, Orange: Gerald, John and/or James. See 1930 NSW Electoral Roll for Orange, entries 3,056, 3,058; Sands Directory for NSW, 1931, 1695.

66. 66 For the Lake Tyers strike, see Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 219–21. For Pryor, see Jim Faull, ‘Oswald Pryor (1881–1971)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1988, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pryor-oswald-8127/text14197.

67. 67 For example, see Gundagai Times and Tumut, Adelong and Murrumbidgee District Advertiser, 30 March 1928, 2; Tumut and Adelong Times, 3 April 1928, 6.

68. 68 Cf. Bamblett, ‘Nangar’, citing Leader (Orange), 7 May 1927, 3, in which Clements points out that his father, Billy Lambert, was a king ‘the same as King George’.

69. 69 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 102–3.

70. 70 For Truganini and the extinction myth, see Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines, xviii–xix, 268–9. In Canberra, for Nellie Hamilton, see QA, 15 September 1888, 2; McDonald, Canberra I, 170; Queanbeyan Observer, 5 January 1897, 2 (reprinted Australian Town & Country Journal [Sydney], 9 January 1897, 14; Australian Star [Sydney], 11 January 1897, 3; Freeman’s Journal [Sydney], 27 March 1897, 20); Sydney Morning Herald, 20 February 1934, 3; Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 1934, 4. Generally, see McDonald, Canberra I, 146, 231–2; J. McDonald, Canberra II: Colonisation (1824–61) (Melbourne: Sorley Boy, 2023), 358–9. For the kingplates in Canberra–Queanbeyan, see McDonald, Canberra I, 167–72.

71. 71 Brisbane Courier, 30 August 1927, 12; Telegraph (Brisbane), 30 August 1927, 4; Queensland Times (Ipswich), 31 August 1927, 6; Daily Advertiser (Wagga Wagga), 1 September 1927, 5; Daily Examiner (Grafton), 2 September 1927, 4; Bairnsdale Advertiser and Tambo and Omeo Chronicle, 2 September 1927, 6; Week (Brisbane), 2 September 1927, 8; Tweed Daily, 3 September 1927, 2; Casino and Kyogle Courier and North Coast Advertiser, 3 September 1927, 3; Guyra Argus, 8 September 1927, 2; Omeo Standard and Mining Gazette, 21 September 1927, 1. Even Noble is reported as claiming the title of ‘last Canberra Abo.’ in Herald (Melbourne), 6 September 1927, 6.

72. 72 L. L. Gillespie, Aborigines of the Canberra Region (Campbell: The Wizard, 1984), 21–2; J. Broadbent and J. Hughes, The Age of Macquarie (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1992), 194.

73. 73 T. Cleary, Poignant Regalia: Nineteenth Century Aboriginal Breastplates and Images (Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 1993), passim; J. Troy, Kingplates: A History of Aboriginal Gorgets (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1993), 83.

74. 74 See M. Donaldson, L. Bursill and M. Jacobs, A History of Aboriginal Illawarra, 2 vols. (Yowie Bay: Dharawal Publications, 2015), vol. ii, 26. Onyong’s kingplate survived and is now in a private collection after purchase via auction in 2016.

75. 75 C. McAlister, Old Pioneering Days in the Sunny South (Goulburn: C. McAlister, 1907), 83.

76. 76 In a rare stumble, journalist Paul Daley (‘Driving Mr Menzies’, Meanjin [Autumn 2016]) wrote that Clements wore a kingplate, but there is no evidence among the descriptions, photographs and studies of kingplates to suggest he wore one, other than Pryor’s fanciful cartoon.

77. 77 On the inheritance of titles, see Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, loc. cit. For the connection to Hamilton, see letters by S. R. Oakley in Sydney Morning Herald, 19 September 1927, 5; V. Filewood in Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 1927, 10. But it is possible that these letter writers, who seem intent on emphasising their credibility, may have been confused with Nellie Hamilton’s third husband, a Braidwood man known as King Billy (separate from the Braidwood King Billy mentioned in the text); cf. Gillespie, Aborigines of the Canberra Region, 55; McDonald Canberra I, 232.

78. 78 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 13 May 1927, 2.

79. 79 Argus (Melbourne), 11 May 1927, 19; cf. Coulthard-Clark, ‘The Aborigine Who Came’, 26–7.