Following Western Australia's convict era, 37 ex-convicts were appointed school teachers in the colony.
The appointment of a large number of ex-convicts as school teachers was largely due to the poor levels of education in the generation of Western Australians who had been children when the Swan River Colony was first settled.
Those settlers who did have a good education were in high demand, and were not attracted to the low wages offered for teachers.
On the other hand, educated convicts had little prospect of obtaining better wages or conditions than those available to teachers, and the position offered a chance to overcome the social stigma of conviction and obtain a respectable position in society.
Erickson (1983) has suggested that the use of ex-convict school teachers played an important role in the gradual breaking down of the social stigma of convictism.