Dick Wardill
Australian rules footballer (1872–1929)
Richard Cameron Wardill (5 July 1872 – 28 August 1929) was an Australian rules footballer and coach who played for the Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Family
The son of Richard Wilson Wardill (1840-1873) — the brother of Benjamin Johnston Wardill (1842-1917)— and Eliza Helena Lovett Wardill (1848-1943), née Cameron, later Mrs. Edward Thomas Tatham, Richard Cameron Wardill was born in Melbourne on 5 July 1872.
Marriage
He married Dorothy Elspeth Wilson (1880-1952), at Mosman, New South Wales, on 17 December 1909.
They had four children: Elspeth Margaret Wardill (1912-2001), later Mrs. Donald Hastings Bennett, Richard David Wardill (1916-2003), Diana Mary Wardill (1920-2003), later Mrs. Godfrey Robert Donaldson, and Dorothy Wardill (b.1914, who only lived for 8 days).
Father's suicide
"In 1872-73 [Richard Wilson] Wardill had serious personal problems probably because of speculation in mining shares; he embezzled £7000 from his employers, the Victoria Sugar Co. On 17 August 1873, aged 38, he committed suicide by jumping into the Yarra River…" — Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Education
He attended Caulfield Grammar School (as did his Melbourne team-mate Frank Langley) from 1886 to 1888.
The public source identifies “Dick Wardill” as australian rules footballer (1872–1929). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dick, Wardill and Australian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5273526. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1872, 1929, 1840 and 1873.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dick Wardill” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.