"William Henry Breton entered the Navy 7 Jan. 1812; passed his [Lieutenant's] examination in 1818; and obtained his commission 10 March, 1827.
On his second visit he stayed for about five and a half months arriving in Sydney on 25 August 1832 on the ship Brothers - a fellow passenger being Captain Phillip Parker King.
In the book he writes when in the colony [ie Van Diemen's Land] in November 1832, however a shipping report shows W. Breton, Esq arriving in Hobart from Sydney on 12 December 1832.
Lieutenant Breton began his third visit to Australia on 15 November 1835, sailing on the ship Brothers,[13] disembarking in Hobart.
[21] He presented a paper on Conchology at the Launceston Mechanic's Institute of which was also President and while resident in Van Dieman's Land collected fossil shells and "curious pebbles".
[23] At the time he left the colony he advertised for sale his collection of "nearly one thousand volumes of works of sterling merit, many elegantly bound".
He collected native implements - one in Tasmania being a stone hammer and anvil arrangement for crushing bones to extract marrow.
William, his mother and siblings were beneficiaries in the will of his uncle Thomas Goldwin, a former sugar plantation owner in Jamaica, who died in 1809.
After the death of her father, Elizabeth with her mother and sisters Mary, Sarah and Sophia had come to Van Diemans land in 1837[28] to stay with her brother Henry D'Arch, a Magistrate and Collector of Customs in Launceston.
He travelled again to Van Dieman's land for about 10 weeks in 1854, possibly to finalise his business interests in the colony and collect property .