Walter George Arthur

Walter George Arthur (c.1820 – 12 May 1861) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian leader, newspaper editor, drover, whaler and pioneering Indigenous rights activist.

He lived on the streets of the British colonial settlement of Launceston with another Aboriginal boy, where in order to survive, they became joined to a criminal gang, working as a petty thieves and pickpockets.

[1] In February 1832 Arthur and the other Aboriginal boy were taken off the streets of Launceston by George Augustus Robinson, an evangelical Christian who was employed by the colonial government to round up the remaining Indigenous Tasmanians.

He also assisted in church services and was a co-editor with another Aboriginal youth named Thomas Brune of the small newspaper at the establishment called the Flinders Island Chronicle.

[4] Arthur witnessed first-hand the dispossession and despair of the local Aboriginal people at the hands of the British colonists, just as he had experienced in his own country in Van Diemen's Land.

[3] In August 1842 Arthur and Mary Ann returned to Wybalenna on Flinders Island where they came into conflict with the new superintendent Dr Henry Jeanneret, who was known to be abusive and dictatorial.

It was the first petition written by Indigenous Australian people to a reigning monarch, in which they wrote: Your Majesty's petitioners pray that you will not allow Dr Jeanneret to come again among us...he used to carry pistols in his pockets and threatened to shoot us...our houses were let fall down and they were never cleaned but covered with vermin...eleven of us died when he was here...he put many of us into jail for talking to him because we would not be his slaves.

[1] As a consequence of the petitions received from Arthur and the others, the Lieutenant-Governor made the decision to shut Wybalenna and transfer the survivors to an abandoned convict holding facility at Oyster Cove, about forty kilometres south-west of Hobart.

Arthur and Mary Ann played a prominent role in demanding improved conditions and made further petitions to be allowed to establish his own farm.