Born in about 1827, Robert Mewburn lived at Stockton on Tees, Durham, and worked as a printer and clerk, but was convicted of "stealing boots and larceny" and sentenced to seven years' transportation. He arrived in Western Australia on board Pyrenees in May 1853.[1] He received his ticket of leave on arrival in the colony, and was issued with a conditional pardon the following year. We worked for Thomas Peel at first, and later ran a general store at Mandurah. He also acted as a lay preacher in the area.
Mewburn apparently began also began informal school teaching, and on 16 March 1870 he married one of his students, fifteen-year-old Emma Eacott, with whom he would have seven children. In 1872 he organised a petition for a regular teacher in the Mandurah area, and this resulted in him being appointed government schoolmaster. He then built his own school, and taught there until his death in 1891.
References
^"Pyrenees". Convicts to Australia. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
Erickson, Rica (1983). "Schoolmasters". In Erickson, Rica (ed.). The Brand on His Coat. Nedlands, Western Australia: University of Western Australia Press. ISBN0-85564-223-8.