[1] West emigrated to Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania) in 1839 where he officiated as an Independent minister at Launceston for sixteen years.

He co-founded the London Agency Association to promote colonial interests, an Immigration Society,[citation needed] the Launceston Mechanics' Institute (1842),[4] City Mission, Public Hospital, General Cemetery, and Cornwall Insurance Company in Launceston and the Hobart Town High School.

He founded the Launceston Association for the Cessation of Transportation which developed into the first intercolonial political organisation, the Australasian Anti-Transportation League, in Melbourne in 1851.

The success of united action against Transportation, which was abolished in 1853, led West to expand his interest in representational government through his essays on Federation, Union of the Colonies, (under the pseudonym John Adams) published locally and in The Sydney Morning Herald during 1854.

His two-volume History of Tasmania, published in 1852, analysed the development of the Colony, the penal system and the condition of the Aboriginal people.