Howard Willoughby

Born in Birmingham, England, on 19 June 1839, he moved to Melbourne in 1857 and built his career in journalism there. The Australian Dictionary of Biography notes that he joined The Age in 1861 before moving to The Argus, where he gained attention for energetic reporting and commentary.

He is often remembered as Australia's first war correspondent because of his reporting on the Māori Wars in New Zealand in 1862–63. He also wrote strongly against the transportation of convicts to Australia and supported Australian federation, later publishing works including Australian Federalism, its Aims and its Possibilities.

Alongside newspaper work, he wrote books that helped interpret Australia for readers at home and abroad. One of the best-known is Australian Pictures, Drawn with Pen and Pencil (1886), a descriptive, illustrated survey of the country that remains available through Project Gutenberg.