John Acton Wroth

John Acton Wroth (1830–1876) was a convict transportee to the Swan River Colony, and later a clerk and storekeeper in Toodyay, Western Australia. He kept a personal diary that recorded life on board the transport ship and his experiences at the country hiring depots of York and Toodyay. This diary is lodged in the archives of the State Library. Early life

Wroth's birth was registered on 17 December 1830 at St Mary at the Quay Church, Ipswich. He was the only son of John, a brewer, and his wife Elizabeth ( Reeves) who died in 1845. There were four older sisters. When Wroth was 17 years old, he was apprenticed to Stephen Piper, a printer in the town of Ipswich. He became enamoured of young girl, Elvina Gartlett, who became the object of his love. He may have wanted to impress upon Gartlett that he was a fashionable young man and to this end he sought means to acquire a gold watch and chain, and a pair of expensive boots. He not only forged orders on behalf of local jewellers and a bootmaker, he also stole a large quantity of stationery from his employer. The fraud was detected and Wroth was charged at the Ipswich Court in August 1848. He was sentenced to transportation for ten years for forging an order for goods, but first he had to spend nine months in solitary confinement, then time in the new Parkhurst gaol for juvenile offenders.

Wroth's family supplied him with items that he would need in his new life, including an exercise book that he used as a diary, describing shipboard life in detail. He made a sketch of the ship and its fittings, and described what the convicts wore and ate. He also practised his shorthand, which would serve him well in his future life in the colony.

Swan River Colony and York

Wroth was transported to the Swan River Colony on Mermaid with over 200 other convicts and a contingent of Pensioner Guards and their families. They included Francis Kirk, who was posted to Toodyay. Wroth was described at the time as 20 years of age, tall, with brown hair and grey eyes. On the voyage out he was given the role of school assistant. James Drummond, a leading pastoralist in Toodyay, also had need of Wroth's clerical skills. Drummond leased one of his cottages at Mill Farm to Wroth, who now felt he was in a position to support a wife and family.

In June 1854 Wroth married Bridget Josephine Ellis, a recent arrival at the Depot. Ellis was one of the emigrant girls brought out on the so-called "bride ships" to redress the shortage of young women in the colony. They went into service as servant girls and became potential brides for single men, both bond and free. The couple had five sons and a daughter. Wroth was an Anglican, but Bridget was Catholic; the couple agreed the sons would be Anglican, while the daughter would be brought up in her mother's faith. He was also appointed to the Toodyay Road Board to undertake clerical work.

Wroth contracted typhoid resulting in his death on 30 July 1876. His memory and contribution to Western Australia are honoured in one of the plaques laid down in St Georges Terrace as part of the state's 150th birthday celebrations.