Is Adjunct Professor Wayne Quilliam Mistaken to Believe that he is Aboriginal?
доверяй, но проверяй
doveryay, no proveryay
Trust, but verify
- Russian proverb
Part 1 - Wayne Quilliam’s Claims to Aboriginality
Figure 1 - Wayne Quilliam is recognised nationally as an “Indigenous photographic artist”. - Source
Wayne Quilliam [b1963] is an Aboriginal Australian photographic artist, curator, and cultural adviser based in Melbourne.
He was born in Hobart, Tasmania and as a child, he spent time in the bush around the Great Lakes and Central Tasmania where he learned about the land from his uncles and grandfather.
However, he was otherwise disconnected from his Aboriginal culture. - Wikipedia
In 2021, Jessica Cordwell of the Canberra Daily told her readers that:
Indigenous photographic artist Wayne Quilliam has won the 2022 National Photographic Portrait Prize (NPPP) with his portrait of Aurukun man, Eric Yunkaporta, titled Silent Strength 2021.
Announced today, Friday 1 July, at the National Portrait Gallery, Quilliam has taken home the prestigious title, as well as $50,000 in prizes including a $30,000 cash prize from the Gallery.
An indigenous man who lives on Naarm [sic] Country in Melbourne, Quilliam took the striking work when attending the Laura Quinkan Indigenous Dance Festival in Far North Queensland, after he and Yunkaporta realised they shared a connection.
“We had a yarn and we realised that I had been photographing his community for a lot of years and then I just turned around and said ‘brother, could I take your photo?’ and I took two or three quick photos and that was that.”
The win is an incredible achievement, not only for Quilliam but also for his community and those he represents in his works.
“As an Aboriginal storyteller, you’re doing it for the community to ensure Aboriginal people are documented. Sometimes our communities are not shown in the right light, they’re shown for negativity.” - (Canberra Daily, 1 July 2021)
Wayne Quilliam is also an Adjunct Professor at the Indigenous Law Centre at the University of NSW, where he is recognised as a “respected Indigenous photographer…and cultural advisor” (Figure 2).
Figure 2 - The University of NSW recognises their Adjunct Professor Wayne Quilliam as a “respected Indigenous photographer…and cultural advisor.” - Source - University of NSW
Wayne Quilliam is a registered member of the Indigenous Art Code Ltd which is “the national organisation responsible for administering a voluntary industry code of conduct for art dealers and other entities who trade in or deal with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and their art.” (Figure 3)
Figure 3 - Source: Indigenous Art Code
Figure 4 - As a member he would be expected to abide by the Code - Source
Figure 5 - An Artist recognised by the Code must be of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander descent. Source
Even Phillip Adams on his ABC Late Night Live radio program accepts that Wayne Quilliam is Aboriginal.
Figure 6 - Source
In the commercial world of Indigenous Business, Wayne Quilliam is widely recognised as being “Aboriginal” and is in fact a co-owner of,
“Australia’s first Indigenous-owned wine company Mt Yengo Wines [which] has seen a tenfold surge in growth in the past three months amid rising demand for brands with cultural provenance,” according to Glen Norris, reporter for The Australian.
“Mt Yengo co-owner Wayne Quilliam said he attributed the rapid growth to people wanting a unique offering from an Indigenous brand that also promotes First Nations art and culture. Mr Quilliam, who is one of Australia’s pre-eminent Aboriginal artists and cultural advisers, has some of his works incorporated into the labels on the bottles…
“We wanted a wine brand that highlighted our art and culture, which plays a vital role in who we are,” Mr Quilliam said. - (Figure 7)
Figure 7 - Wayne Quilliam, “Australia’s first Indigenous wine company” co-owner. Source: The Australian 7 Jan 2025
Adjunct Professor Wayne Quilliam’s Claims regarding his Aboriginality, in his own words:
``It was always our grandmother [who] dropped the sort of hint that we're Aboriginal; where mum would tell us and they'd sort of reinterate [sic] in such a way that - they would, they just never come out one day and said we're Aboriginal. It never happened like that. It was always that discussion of, you know, we’d be out hunting and you know the grandfather had talked to us, and that was from the white side of the family my grandfather, my mother's side, we’re Aboriginal, and they showed us this old photo of our great, great, great grandmother and they showed us a birth certificate and basically it was just married to an Aboriginal woman so that's our, that's all the information we've got. ‘Cause Tassie back then, there wasn't the records, the record keeping. There wasn't a lot of information around.”
- Wayne Quilliam in 2014 explaining his awareness of his claimed Aboriginality to Karla Grant on NITV’s Living Black (Video clip below)
Part 2 - But Is this all true?
Is Wayne Quilliam correct to believe that he is of Aboriginal descent?
So far the public have placed their trust in what he has said, but now we need to verify the claims of Professor Wayne Quilliam himself, as he expressed in his video -
“…my mother's side, we’re Aboriginal, and they showed us this old photo of our great, great, great grandmother [3Xgreat-] and they showed us a birth certificate and basically it was just married to an Aboriginal woman so that's our, that's all the information we've got.”
The genealogists and researchers at Dark Emu Exposed have now set out to verify his claims by constructing all the branches of the Quilliam’s alleged family tree that led to his maternal "3X great-grandmothers”.
Of the eight possible maternal 3Xgreat-grandmothers of Wayne Quilliam, only four lived in Australia. [The other four from his maternal grandfather’s line were all born in Germany - See alleged, full maternal, Family Tree in Figure 12 below].
The four Australia-resident or Australian-born 3Xgreat-grandmothers were found to be :
Sarah Briggs - Born in England and not Aboriginal (Figure 8).
Jacobina Elizabeth Pearce - Born in Tasmania, and her ancestors were born in England, Scotland, Jamaica and Africa and/or West Indies. This line of the family was ‘coloured’ [See discussion below]. Not Aboriginal (Figure 9).
Sophia Morgan - Born in England and not Aboriginal (Figure 10).
Lucy Hambly (Duncombe) - Born in Tasmania, and her ancestors were born in England and not Aboriginal (Figure 11).
The following Figure 8 confirms that Sarah Briggs, one of Wayne Quilliam’s maternal 3Xgreat-grandmothers, was English, not Aboriginal.
Figure 8 - A branch of the alleged maternal family tree of Wayne Quilliam that indicates that his 3Xgreat-grandmother, Sarah Briggs, was born in England.
Disclaimer: This genealogical work has been undertaken in good faith and is based on the publicly available records. However, it cannot account for events which may result in Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (TSI) ancestry entering into the family line, such as via a private or unrecorded adoption of an Aboriginal TSI or child into the family, or a relationship out of wedlock between a family member and an Aboriginal person that produced a child of Aboriginal or TSI descent who was then incorporated into the family without record, or with a record that did not disclose the Aboriginality or TSI-descent of that child.
The next Figure 9 indicates that the second of his maternal 3Xgreat-grandmothers, Jacobina Elizabeth Pearce, was born in Tasmania and her ancestors were born in England, Scotland, Jamaica and Africa and/or West Indies. This line of the family was ‘coloured’ [See discussion below] but not Aboriginal.
Figure 9 - A branch of the alleged maternal family tree of Wayne Quilliam that indicates that his 3Xgreat-grandmother, Jacobina Elizabeth Pierce, was born in Tasmania, but her ancestors were born in England, Scotland, Jamaica and Africa and/or West Indies. [Subject to same Disclaimer in Figure 8 above]
The following Figure 10 indicates that the third of his maternal 3Xgreat-grandmothers, Sophia Morgan, was born in England and she was thus not Aboriginal.
Figure 10 - A branch of the alleged maternal family tree of Wayne Quilliam that indicates that his 3Xgreat-grandmother, Sophia Morgan, was born in England. [Subject to same Disclaimer in Figure 8 above]
The final Figure 11 indicates that the fourth, and last, of his Australian-born or resident, maternal 3Xgreat-grandmothers, Lucy Hambly (Duncombe), was born in Tasmania. Her mother had been born in the colony on Norfolk Island to English parents and her father had been born in England. She was thus not Aboriginal.
Figure 11 - A branch of the alleged maternal family tree of Wayne Quilliam that indicates that his 3Xgreat-grandmother, Lucy Hambly (Duncombe), was born in Tasmania. Her ancestors were born in England. [Subject to same Disclaimer in Figure 8 above]
The full detailed branch of Wayne Quilliam’s maternal family tree is shown in Figure 12. It is colour-coded to show his German ancestry in purple, British (English & Scottish) in blue and his ancestor’s African/West Indian ancestry in light orange/beige. [The green code indicates his ancestor that came across with the First Fleet as one if the very few free men that wasn’t either a convict or soldier or government administrator].
Figure 12 - Wayne Quilliam’s Alleged Maternal Family Tree. It indicates that from his mother’s side, he has inherited approximately 50% German and 50% English/Scottish ancestry, with a very minor (<<1%) African/West Indian ancestry. The estimated percent ancestries are indicated by colour: German (as purple), British (as blue) , African/West Indian ( as light orange/beige). The ancestor in green background indicates a First Fleet ancestor. Full copy here as .pdf and here as .jpeg
Conclusion
The results of the genealogical research presented here indicate that it appears that Professor Wayne Quilliam is mistaken to believe that he is ‘Aboriginal’ on his mother’s side of the family.
If, as he has said, he has relied upon family oral history and an ‘old photo’ of his 3Xgreat-grandmother who may have ‘looked’ Aboriginal, then he appears to have made the fundamental error that ‘blackness’ or ‘colour’ in one’s Australian colonial ancestors must indicate Aboriginality.
In fact, many people in colonial Australia had ‘dark’, ‘black’ or ‘coloured’ skin tones, but that does not necessarily mean that they were of Aboriginal ancestry.
In Wayne Quilliam’s case, any ‘colour’ in the family was most likely derived via the ancestry of his 5Xgreat-grandfather Robert William Hepburn (Figure 13), who was born in Jamaica in 1782 to a mother, Mary Ann Roy (Figure 14) who was said to have been a ‘mulatto’ - someone of mixed-race heritage and ‘coloured’.
Figure 13 - Said to be a photograph of Captain Robert William Hepburn who emigrated to Tasmania in 1827 [arr. in 1828 - see shipping news here ]
A report of his Obituary appeared in the Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston, Tas.), Wednesday 21 February 1866, page 6.
Sources: The Peerage [www.thepeerage.com]. His mother Mary Ann Roy was said to have been a ‘mulatto’ [West Indian ‘half-caste’] - see Figure 14
Figure 14 - The Peerage entry with details, contributed by other genealogical researchers, indicating that Mary Ann Roy (Wayne Quilliam’s 6Xgreat-grandmother) was a mulatto and thus of ‘colour.’ This would explain the dark skin tone and African/West Indian appearance of her alleged son Robert William Hepburn in Figure 13 (Wayne’s 5Xgreat-grandfather who emigrated to Van Dieman’s Land/ Tasmania). Source
The daughter of Captain Hepburn was Wayne Quilliam’s 4Xgreat-grandmother, Lilias Pearce (nee Hepburn). Her obituary provided details of her links to her father, Captain Hepburn.
1913 Death Daily Post (Hobart, Tas.), 10 May 1913, p. 7
An old resident of Brighton in the person of Mrs. Lilias Pearce died yesterday in her 97th year. The deceased lady was the widow of the late Mr. F. Pearce, and daughter of the late Captain Robert Hepburn, R.N., of Roy’s Hill, Avoca, and had resided at Brighton, for over 80 years. Captain Hepburn came out to Tasmania in the ship Grennock about 87 years ago, and took up land. Captain Hepburn was chosen captain of the flagship Prince Regent which escorted King George IV up the Firth of Forth, in Scotland. Two sons and one daughter survive Mrs. Pearce. The funeral will take place at Pontville tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock. The funeral arrangements are in the hands of Messrs. Clark Bros., Argyle street, Hobart.
A photograph said to be of Lilias Pearce (nee Hepburn) indicates some appearance of ‘colour’ (Figure 15). Genealogical records indicate that she was of some 25% Africa/West Indian ancestry (see Figures 9 & 12).
This ancestral line, carrying some ‘colour’ as it does, would appear to be the source of the oral history that Wayne Quilliam spoke of, when he claimed his grandmother “dropped the sort of hint that we're Aboriginal.”
Figure 15 - Said to be a photograph of Lilias Hepburn (centre middle), who was Wayne Quilliam’s 4Xgreat-grandmother [date unknown]. The photograph is said to included Lillias Hepburn (Pearce), her daughter Charlotte Warburton Pearce (Partington) and Charlottes children; William Matthew, Harold Pearce, Percival Pearce, Preston Pearce, James Leslie, Sarah Ann, Rebecca Mary, and Ann Crump Partington. Source: Ancestry.com [Ancestry user taniachancellor1 originally shared this on 3 Aug 2019]
Part 3 - Where to from Here?
We have undertaken this investigation because Professor Wayne Quilliam:
is a public figure;
has made public statements and claims as to being “Aboriginal” or “Indigenous” and,
has received official public recognition as an “Aboriginal” or “Indigenous man” from universities, publicly-funded art galleries and government funded and/or sponsored organisations such as, NAIDOC, National Art Gallery Canberra, Indigenous Arts Code Ltd (Figure 3 above) and Indigenous Business Australia.
Many Australians would thus believe that it is incumbent on Professor Quilliam to provide reassurance to the public and the tax-payer, and indeed to ‘real’ Aboriginal people, that he is Aboriginal as we currently understand what that means today. This necessarily involves him providing evidence that he is of some Aboriginal descent.
To this end we have attempted to contact Professor Quilliam at several of his published email addresses and his mobile telephone number. No response or acknowledgement of our requests has been received to date.
We will continue to seek a response from Professor Quilliam and will post on any developments.
Further Thoughts & Reading
Is it legal to ‘challenge’ Professor Wayne Quilliam’s claims to Aboriginality?
Yes it is, but first some background.
At Dark Emu Exposed we never investigate or challenge the identity claims of private people. How one identifies in private, amongst one’s family or local community is none of our business. However, the moment a person enters the public space and puts out their hand for a benefit, whether it be for a job, grant, funding or recognition, because of their Aboriginality, then we at Dark Emu Exposed believe that it is incumbent on that person to prove to the rest of us that they are indeed Aboriginal.
To support our ability to `challenge the genuineness of the identification’ of Wayne Quilliam’s claim that he is Aboriginal, we rely upon the findings in the notorious Eatock v Bolt [2011] FCA 1103 - 197 FCR 261 court case. As explained by William Isdale, of the University of Queensland, in 2014:
The [Andrew Bolt] articles suggested that a number of fair-skinned Aboriginal people chose to identify as Aboriginal in order to receive career opportunities and other benefits. Mr Bolt named specific individuals with a public profile that he considered exemplified this “trend”.
In and of itself, the question of accessibility to opportunities and benefits is an important issue that is deserving of debate, even vigorous debate that offends. It was not the topic that landed Mr Bolt in trouble, however – it was his tone and factual inaccuracies. As Justice Bromberg wrote:
It is important that nothing in the orders I make should suggest that it is unlawful for a publication to deal with racial identification including challenging the genuineness of the identification of a group of people. I have not found Mr Bolt and HWT [his employer] to have contravened s 18C simply because the Newspaper Articles dealt with subject matter of that kind. I have found a contravention because of the manner in which that subject matter was dealt with.
Justice Bromberg found that Mr Bolt had demonstrated a “lack of care and diligence” through the inclusion of “untruthful facts and the distortion of truth”, coupled with “the derisive tone, the provocative and inflammatory language and the inclusion of gratuitous asides.” It was found that the articles were not written “reasonably and in good faith” in the course of commenting on a matter of public interest…
- William Isdale, Do people have a right to be bigots?, Practical Ethics online, 13 May 2014
Thus to avoid the legal problems Andrew Bolt encountered, Dark Emu Exposed relies upon the guidance of Justice Bromberg by ensuring that we do our research in good faith, in the public interest and with a high degree of scholastic diligence such that we only publish “truthful facts” supported by evidence and any disclaimers. We also adopt a professional, civil tone and ‘manner’ in which we present our evidence when ‘challenging’ the subjects of our research.
Our standard Disclaimer is:
This genealogical work has been undertaken in good faith and is based on the publicly available records. However, it cannot account for events which may result in Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (TSI) ancestry entering into the family line, such as via a private or unrecorded adoption of an Aboriginal TSI or child into the family, or a relationship out of wedlock between a family member and an Aboriginal person that produced a child of Aboriginal or TSI descent who was then incorporated into the family without record, or with a record that did not disclose the Aboriginality or TSI-descent of that child.
