James Elphinstone Roe

The prosecution's case mainly hinged upon evidence suggesting that the date stamp on the envelope in which the money order was claimed to have been sent had been faked.

Roe was transported to what was then the British penal colony of Western Australia on board York, arriving in December 1862.

However Bishop Hale, who was also chairman of the Board of Education, sympathised with the family's plight, and in 1866 he tried to secure for Roe and his wife a joint appointment to a new school at Greenough.

James Roe started at Greenough early in 1867, and by April the local Education Board reported positively on his progress.

Roe's relationship with his local Education Board began to sour in 1870, after the appointment of Hayes Laurence as its chairman.

Roe and Laurence immediately found themselves on opposing sides of one of the most controversial issues of the day: the question of whether Catholic schools should receive a government grant.

[5] It is also thought that Roe contributed to his disfavour with the Board by voicing his strong views on school management.

On 28 January 1871, he wrote a long letter to the Fremantle Herald, outlining a series of recommendations for education reform.

He worked at the paper for the rest of his life, by which time Beresford had died, and Pearce had sold the Herald to the Inquirer.

James Roe found it increasingly difficult thereafter to live on the money he made from the Herald, so from 1890 he also worked in his daughter's market garden.

James Roe's daughter Helen married Patrick Stone, who later became a Member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly.