William Splatt

William Francis Splatt (14 April 1811 – 17 October 1893) was born in Devon, England. In 1841 he emigrated to Australia and became a member of the first Legislative Council of Victoria, Australia. He returned to England a wealthy man in 1854, and became the first mayor of Torquay, Devon in 1892.

Splatt was born at Northwood Farm in the parish of Chudleigh, Devon, England, the eldest son of John Splatt (born 1780), a yeoman farmer born in Kenton, himself the son of William Splatt of Kenton, by his wife Anne. John farmed at Powderham where in 1805 he married his first wife Fanny Stokes (born 1780) at nearby Kenton Church. Following his wife's early death he moved to Northwood Farm in the parish of Chudleigh, where he remarried to Elizabeth Laskey (1784-1850), widow of Mr Yeo, by whom he had 10 children. The eldest son of this marriage was William Francis Splatt (1811-1892), baptised in Chudleigh Church.

He was educated at the well-regarded Kentisbeare School, and later worked at Chudleigh as a solicitor's clerk for Charles Langley. He later moved to Keynsham near Bristol where he became a merchant, and got married to Elizabeth Satterley Pinsent (daughter of Joseph Pinsent of Lettaford in the parish of North Bovey, a London merchant).

In 1840 Splatt sailed on the 'Theresa', as an emigrant to Australia (where his brother Edmund Laskey Splatt had emigrated shortly before) together with his wife, his brother Thomas Splatt and his brother-in-law Joseph Burton Pinsent, and having arrived in the Port Phillip District in May 1841, they settled at Melbourne, where they became successful merchants and sheep farmers. He was joined the following year by his elder half-sister, Fanny Splatt (1806–1895), her husband Thomas Dolling (1810–1898), and their three children, who farmed at Merri Creek, Pentridge (later known as Coburg), Victoria. William Splatt occupied several pastoral runs on the Glenelg, Loddon and Wimmera Rivers.

He became a prominent spokesman for pastoralists, and on 5 September 1851 was elected member for Wimmera in the Victorian Legislative Council. He was sworn-in November 1851 and held the seat until resigning in April 1854.

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