Historical information

Wills Street in the Kew ward of Studley Park was named after Thomas Wills. This work forms part of the collection assembled by the historian Dorothy Rogers, that was donated to the Kew Historical Society by her son John Rogers in 2015. The manuscripts, photographs, maps, and documents were sourced by her from both family and local collections or produced as references for her print publications. Many were directly used by Rogers in writing ‘Lovely Old Homes of Kew’ (1961) and 'A History of Kew' (1973), or the numerous articles on local history that she produced for suburban newspapers. Most of the photographs in the collection include detailed annotations in her hand.

Significance

The Rogers Collection provides a comprehensive insight into the working habits of a historian in the 1960s and 1970s. Together it forms the largest privately-donated collection within the archives of the Kew Historical Society

Physical description

A copy of a portrait of Thomas Wills, aged 56 years. Wills was an early landowner in Kew.

Inscriptions & markings

Thomas Wills - Born Sydney 1799. Built Willsmere Farm ca. 1850