William Chopin was convicted of uttering forged notes, and received a sentence of twenty years.
[1] For his first seven years in Western Australia, Chopin worked in the prison hospitals at Fremantle and later Albany, dispensing medicine.
Chopin received his ticket of leave on 7 December 1874, and the following month was appointed a dispenser of medicine at the Colonial Hospital.
For a short time he worked in his brother's shop, but by 1876 he was advertising himself as a chemist in St Georges Terrace, Perth.
School teaching was one of the few reputable occupations that were open to convicts in Western Australia, as the low pay and poor conditions were not attractive to the very small number of well-educated settlers in the colony.