Sir Wilmot Hudson Fysh was born on 7 January 1895 at Launceston, Tasmania. He was educated at Launceston Grammar School and the Geelong Church of England Grammar School in Victoria. He first worked as a jackeroo and wool classer then enlisted in the 1st Australian Light Horse when war broke out in 1914. He served at Gallipoli and Egypt, and in Palestine as a lieutenant. He later served in the Australian Flying Corps as an air gunner in Palestine and received a Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry.
After the war Fysh and another ex-airman Pat McGinness took on the job of surveying the Longreach to Darwin section of the proposed Australia to London air route and in doing so undertook the first journey by car overland to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Their trek led to the formation of Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (QANTAS) in November 1920. Initially they flew charter and joy-riding flights to raise capital. On 3 November 1922, Fysh flew the Longreach to Cloncurry section of Qantas’ first regular passenger/air mail service. Appointed manager in 1923, he was responsible for building the company from its very modest beginnings, and indeed continued to have leadership responsibilities for QANTAS in its various forms until he retired in June 1966.
Hudson Fysh was knighted in June 1953 for his services to civil aviation.
After his retirement Fysh wrote what was in part a history of Qantas and in part an autobiographical trilogy, Qantas Rising (1965), Qantas at War (1968) and Wings to the World (1970). Other titles by Fysh include The Log of the Astraea (1933), Taming the North (1933), and Van Diemen’s Land Pioneer (1973).
But Fysh was also an angler. He wrote an occasional magazine article (his ‘Trout fishing at Mount Kosciusko’ in a 1967 issue of Walkabout is a personal favourite) but it is his 1968 volume Round the Bend in the Stream that is of particular interest. In the introduction Fysh writes, “I have been passionately fond of trout fishing, of the outdoor far-away places which fishing brings, and of the elements of nature with which one comes in contact when on the banks of some valley stream or up in the mountains.” Here we share Fysh’s fishing and travel experiences across the world, including sojourns in New Zealand, England and Scotland, Europe, India and New Guinea, as well as chapters on Tasmania and the Snowy and Monaro regions of New South Wales.
Hudson Fysh died on 6 April 1974 at Paddington in Sydney. While his angling legacy is perhaps modest, especially when compared to his stature in Australian aviation, his vivid pen pictures of the people and places of another era will ensure his continuing place in the literature.
