# Eric Willmot

Eric Paul Willmot AM, (31 January 1936 – 20 April 2019) was an Australian scholar, educator, writer, and engineer. He latterly claimed aboriginal heritage, which formed a significant portion of his personal and professional identity. It was later proven to false.

## Early life and education

Eric Paul Willmot was born on 31 January 1936 in Queensland.
He was educated first at various Queensland schools, then obtained his BSc and DipEd at the University of Newcastle, in New South Wales.
In 1980 he obtained his Master of Education (Research) in 1980 at the University of Canberra.

## Career

After obtaining his Master of Education, Willmot joined the faculty of the Australian National University. At the time he was considered the first Indigenous principal of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies from 1981 to 1984 (later known as AIATSIS).
Willmot later joined the James Cook University as Professor of Education.
He retired from public administration in 1994 to then do engineering research in private enterprise. He spent a lot of time in his shed working on his inventions, but few ever made it to market as (in the words of his daughter, Haidi), he "was not a businessman".
Other positions held by Willmot included Director of Research at the ANU, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, and Chief Education Officer in the ACT Department of Education.
He wrote Pemulwuy, The Rainbow Warrior, a novel about an aborigine whom he suggested was a resistance hero to colonialism. According to his daughter Haidi, writing was "his joy, his passion, and his escape".

## Claim of aboriginality

Willmot became an early example in Australia of a non-aboriginal person identifying as indigenous, when after spending time in Papua New Guinea, he claimed to possess such ancestry. Two of his sisters, Mary and Christine, attempted to privately dissuade him from doing so; the latter ultimately writing to a newspaper to state: "extensive genealogical research has failed to suggest any aboriginal connections, and discussion among near and distant family members has failed to turn up any oral history which would give rise to Eric's claim...We recognise that Eric has done a lot of good things in the field of aboriginal education, but we feel it is wrong and unnecessary (and ultimately harmful to the Aborigines' cause) to falsify his heritage to it.

## Personal life and death

Willmot married twice. He had four children with his first wife. He met his second wife in Papua New Guinea in the 1970s, and had a daughter, Haidi, with her, and the family spent some time in Vanuatu.
He died at Baulkham Hills, New South Wales on 20 April 2019.

## Honours and awards

* 1981: Australian Inventor of the Year
* 1984: Member of the Order of Australia, for "service to education and in the field of Aboriginal studies"
* 1986: Gave the annual series of Boyer Lectures, titled "Australia: The Last Experiment"
* 1986: Gave the inaugural Frank Archibald Memorial Lecture, titled "Future Pathways: Equity or Isolation"
* 1987: FAW Patricia Weickhardt Award to an Aboriginal Writer
* ?: Winner, Medaille d'Or Genève, by the Salon des Inventions in Geneva, twice, for his invention of a
continuously variable-ratio rigid body transmission