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.
[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.
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.