William Baker (colonist)

In 1810 he was dismissed from all government posts after being found to have misused his position for personal gain, and relocated to Hobart where he became the inaugural crier for Australia's oldest colony-wide judicature, the Supreme Court of Van Diemen's Land.

Enlistment requirements mandated that members of the New South Wales Corps were at least five and a half feet tall,[1] with previous satisfactory service in the British Marines[2] and the appearance of being among " the stoutest, fittest and healthiest [of] men".

[5] Ship's surgeon John White treated the wound, and reported a significant injury to the right ankle: "The bones, after being a good deal shattered, turned the (musket) ball which, taking another direction, had still force enough left to go through a harness cask full of beef at some distance, and after that to kill two geese who were on the other side of it.

[7] He was further appointed as orderly to the colony's Governor, Arthur Phillip, an administrative office that relieved him of routine duties such as supervising the landing of convicts or clearing trees and undergrowth for the building of the settlement.

[4][8] Immediately on arrival in Port Jackson Baker also took a common-law wife from among the convicts – 25-year-old Susannah Huffnell, who had been sentenced to seven years transportation for petty larceny.

The bulk of the Marine force departed in December of that year aboard HMS Gorgon, leaving sixty men behind under the command of Lieutenant John Poulden to support the newly established New South Wales Corps.

Within six months he received an appointment from the Navy Board to act as civilian superintendent of convicts aboard the transport vessel Surprize, which departed for New South Wales in early 1794.

To supplement his farming income he petitioned for administrative employment and was appointed storekeeper in Parramatta in January 1795, supervising distribution and security of military and civilian supplies.

[4] Two months later Governor John Hunter appointed him superintendent of convicts for the Hawkesbury region, a newly established area of farms to the northwest of Baker's own lands.

In a letter on 19 April, sent via the New South Wales Corps commander in Hawkesbury, Hunter directed Baker to return half of the harvest he had already stored, and instead fill the storehouse with goods from smaller farms.

[28] Despite this, he publicly welcomed Bligh's overthrow in the 1808 Rum Rebellion and congratulated former Marines officer George Johnston for helping seize executive authority on behalf of the New South Wales Corps.

[17] In so doing he drew the attention of Bligh's replacement, Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who commenced an investigation into accusations that Baker had unfairly treated Hawkesbury settlers by appropriating supplies from the government store.

His business interests having collapsed, Baker abandoned his farm and relocated from New South Wales to the southern settlement of Hobart in Van Diemen's Land.

A year later, at an approximate age of 54, he accepted a job as town crier for the newly created Deputy Judge Advocate's Court, calling witnesses and announcing verdicts on the roadside outside the courthouse.

[30] The Supreme Court of Van Diemen's Land was established by The Royal Letters Patent of 13 October 1823 and commenced activities on 10 May 1824, with Baker as its inaugural crier.