Original copy of 1902 biography by Reverend William Osborne Lilley (1839-1914) of Queensland politician William Brookes (1825-1898) who was a member of both the Queensland Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly:

Rev. W. Osborne Lilley, Life of the Hon. William Brookes: A Distinguished Queensland Citizen (Brisbane: City Printing Works, 1902)

William Osborne Lilley was the son of devout Wesleyan Methodists. He entered the ministry of the United Methodist Free Church in 1862, but for health reasons sought a warmer climate and emigrated to Australia in 1883 and settled in Brisbane, Queensland, where he continued his ministry at the Ann Street Methodist Church.

While in Brisbane, he also joined the editorial staff of the Evangelical Standard, which was a Protestant weekly paper with a very definite religious and political bias. He died in Brisbane in 1914.

Apart from his 1913 autobiographical Reminiscences of Life in Brisbane, and Reflections and Sayings, Lilley also wrote the non-fiction travel book, Bound For Australia On Board the Orient: A Passenger’s Log (London: Andrew Crombie Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1885); the novel, Philip Murton, or, By-Paths to the Light (Sydney: Christian World, [1913]); and the biography, Life of the Hon. William Brookes: A Distinguished Queensland Citizen (Brisbane: City Printing Works, 1902).