William Lanne

Who was William Lanne?

William Lanne was a Tasmanian Aborigine. He is most well known as the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian man.

Lanne was captured along with his family in 1842 during a period known as the Black War. He was the youngest child in the last family taken to the Aboriginal camp at Wybelenna on Flinders Island by George Augustus Robinson. His native name is lost, probably because at 7 he was too young when arriving at Wybalenna and so the English name William he was given there stuck.

In 1847, he temporarily moved to Oyster Cove, and was sent to an orphanage in Hobart until 1851. In 1855 he joined a whaling ship and regularly visited Oyster Cove when he had time.

Lanne died on 3 March 1869 from a combination of cholera and dysentery.

Following his death his body was dismembered and used for scientific purposes. An argument broke out between the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Royal Society of Tasmania over who should possess his remains. It was reported that someone, allegedly a member of the English College of Surgeons named William Crowther, managed to break into the morgue where Lanne's body was kept and decapitated the corpse, removed the skin and inserted a skull from a white body into the black skin. The Tasmanian Royal Society soon discovered Crowther's work, and decided to thwart any further attempts to collect "samples" by amputating the hands and feet and discarding them separately. Lanne was then buried in this state.