Centenarian Bill is a super expert in his field - a big fish in a tiny sea

Dr William (Bill) Richardson is considered such an expert in his field that he was contacted at the age of 94 to start his last piece of research.

Bill received a letter from a researcher in France who was working with a manuscript from the 1480s that contained sailing directions to the Western coastlines of Europe and many place names. 

The researcher was struggling to decipher the identifying features of the British Isles and the solution was for Bill to get involved from the other side of the world. 

Now 100 years old, Bill lives with his wife Helen in the Oakfield Rise Retirement Estate in Mount Barker, and has a life of learning and teaching to share. 

Born in 1924 in London, Bill’s mother passed away when he was two and his father remarried. 

Bill’s new stepmother became a good influence on his life, in particular encouraging him to join choirs - which became very important later in life. 

At the age of 18 he joined the Royal Hampshire Regiment during World War II. 

At the end of the war Bill was appointed as Captain to lead a team for the Graves Registration Service in Java, Malaya and Burma, to supervise the identification and burial of those who were killed in action. 

Bill had always wanted to attend university in Oxford but his maths marks prevented him from getting in. 

With his war service came the benefit of becoming eligible for a university place without further study. 

After graduating Bill undertook a teacher training course and spent time in Brazil on travelling scholarships, before returning to his father’s parish in Sussex in 1953. 

That’s when he met his wife Helen, who had been sent to a nearby farm through a post-war government training scheme. 

Helen joined the church choir and as an alto was told to sit with the men - right next to Bill of course. 

In 1956 the couple married and later had a daughter and a son. 

Bill taught French and Spanish at grammar schools for 13 years before the family moved to Australia in 1965. 

He then lectured at Flinders University in Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian studies. 

“It was an exciting time to be there,” Bill said. 

“Everyone was energetic and optimistic about the future.” 

The first of Bill’s publications was a book of extracts from Spanish and Spanish American novels, short stories and newspaper articles, published in 1964. 

It was the claim that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to land in Australia that spurred Bill to further research in the 1980s, and he published a series of papers exposing the anomalies in the evidence behind the claim. 

Eventually, in 2006 the Australian National Library published his book Was Australia Charted Before 1606?. 

In 2011 Bill was awarded a PhD on the strength of his publications; as Helen puts it he is a “big fish in a tiny sea”. 

Bill credits his long life to his wife and the love and care she has shown him over the years, but said his research has also been a lifelong love. 

To read about more of the celebrated centenarians in the Southern Cross Care Community, click here.