Bill Onus

William Townsend Onus Jnr (15 November 1906 – 10 January 1968) was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, designer, and showman, also known for his boomerang-throwing skills.

He was father of artist Lin Onus.

Onus was born on 15 November 1906 at the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Reserve in New South Wales, the eldest child of William Townsend Onus Snr and Maud Mary Onus, née Nelson, from Framlingham, Victoria.

His father was of Wiradjuri background and his mother of the Yorta Yorta people, and he had a brother, Eric, and a sister, Maude, known as "Sissy".

In 1916, in a time when many people were leaving Cummeragunja owing to land being taken and children being forcibly removed, Maude also left, moving to nearby Echuca, in Victoria.

Bill grew up along with several other people destined to become advocates for and leaders of their people: Doug Nicholls, John (Jack) Patten, and Margaret Tucker.

He was educated at Thomas Shadrach James' mission school in Cummeragunja as well as spending two years at school in Echuca from the age of ten.

In 1918 the family followed his father to the Riverina, where William Snr worked as a drover.

In 1922, the age of 16, Onus left home to become a shearer, which he pursued for seven years.

In 1929 he moved to Sydney, where he initially worked at the Bankstown Aerodrome as a rigger.

During the Great Depression Onus took a number of jobs, including prospecting down the coast at Bega, and truck-driving upon his return to Sydney in 1934.

He lived at the Salt Pan Creek camp in south-western Sydney, where refugees from the north and south coast and Cummeragunja lived, including Jack Patten, Jack Campbell, and Pearl Gibbs.

In 1936, Onus appeared in Charles Chauvel's feature film Uncivilised, then in 1937 had an acting role in Ken G.Hall's romantic melodrama Lovers and Luggers (retitled Vengeance of the Deep in the US and UK ).

The funds were used for legal aid for Aboriginal war veterans, as well as the Redfern All Blacks rugby league team, co-founded in 1938 with Wesley Simms.

In 1939, Onus joined the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA), later becoming secretary and becoming a full-time employee of the association, described as "an uncompromising radical".

He was then living in the Sydney suburb of Newtown.

He established the Moree branch of the APA, and was involved in the Committee for Aboriginal Citizen Rights (associated with the Australian Labor Party), which was attempting to reform the Aborigines Welfare Board of New South Wales.

In Redfern, where many families were arriving and settling, he organised fund-raising weekly dances.

In 1939 he returned home to take part in the Cummeragunja walk-off, which was one of the earliest mass protests of Indigenous Australians.

During the 1940s and 1950s Onus became famous for his skill at boomerang-throwing, performing at various tourist sites in Victoria and NSW, and also toured New Zealand.

Working from home he began a new career as a businessman, selling Aboriginal art.

Moving to Northern Territory for the filming of Harry Watt's classic film The Overlanders in 1945, Onus saw Aboriginal stockmen being treated violently and being chained up.

From 1946, Onus rejoined his parents in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, this time working as a shipping clerk.

He met his second wife, Mary Kelly, at a Communist Party of Australia rally during this period.

He joined forces with pastor and later co-founder of the Aboriginal Advancement League (AAL) Doug Nicholls, and with his brother Eric, the three travelled widely, using public rallies, community meetings, and the media to advocate for Aboriginal rights.

They organised support for the Pilbara strike in Western Australia, and protests against the Woomera rocket testing range in South Australia.

In 1949 Onus addressed a crowd at The Domain in Sydney with Bill Ferguson and Reg Saunders.

He considered standing for federal parliament (as Ferguson did), but did not go ahead.

In the 1950s he joined the protest against British nuclear tests at Maralinga.

When he intended to travel to the United States to talk about Indigenous rights in Australia with relation to the civil rights movement there, his passport was suddenly cancelled.

It later emerged that ASIO had handed his file to the US embassy.

After a serious road accident in 1952 disabled him for a year, he was afterwards able to use the compensation money to establish Aboriginal Enterprises, selling Aboriginal art and souvenirs in Belgrave, Victoria.

The AAL was also involved in the push to retain Lake Tyers Mission, an Aboriginal reserve, and in 1963 he and his brother Eric Onus organised a march in Melbourne.

Branches were opened at Port Augusta, South Australia (1964), and at Narbethong, Victoria (c.1965).

They sold bark paintings from Arnhem Land as well as artefacts, furniture, textiles, and pottery produced locally.

His businesses provided training and employment to many Aboriginal people (as well as non-Aboriginal), including family members: brother Eric became manager of the Narbethong branch with his wife Winnie; sister Maude (Sissy) and several of her sons (James Onus, and Joe, Bruce, Dennis and John McGuinness); his son Lin; daughter Isobel and her son Warren (Woz) Owens.

Onus became a leader of Aboriginal Victorians in the fight for the "yes" vote in the 1967 referendum for over a decade, as the first Aboriginal president of the Aboriginal Advancement League (AAL), and in the same year became a representative on the Victorian Aboriginal Welfare Board.

He was the first Aboriginal Justice of the Peace.

They later teamed up with Stan Davey to form the Save Lake Tyers Committee, which eventually resulted in the first successful land rights claim in Victoria, when in 1971 Lake Tyers was returned to the traditional owners.

Activists started utilising Aboriginal culture as a form of activism, and Onus played a big part in many types of performance.