James Elphinstone Roe
Encyclopedia
James Elphinstone Roe was a convict transported
to Western Australia
. After serving his sentence he became one of the colony's ex-convict school teachers
. Through his agitation for education reform
, he played an important role in "shaping the education system and political policies in the colony". He later distinguished himself as a journalist
.
James Elphinstone Roe was born in Kirkby on Bain
, Lincolnshire
, and baptised there on 18 October 1818. His father was Rev. Thomas Roe, the town's rector
, and his mother was Catherine Sarah née Elphinstone. Nothing is known of his childhood, but in June 1836 he began studies at Worcester College, Oxford
. During his university years he was a member of the Oxford Movement
, an organisation that aimed to return the Church of England
to its Catholic
roots, and which later collapsed after one of its leaders renounced the Church of England and converted to Catholicism. Although Roe himself remained an Anglican throughout his life, he was often sympathetic to and supportive of Catholic causes, and had a number of Catholic friends.
Roe graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
in 1841, and is thought to have taken his holy orders
shortly afterwards. In August 1843, he married Susannah Moore. They would have fourteen children, of which nine survived beyond childhood.
In 1861, James Roe was convicted in the Old Bailey
of forging
a money order
. Apparently Roe had expected to be left money by an uncle, Edward Roe, but a cousin had induced the uncle to make a will in the cousin's favour only a week before the uncle's death. After the uncle's death, Roe had produced a money order for £6000 apparently made out to him from the uncle. The cousin challenged the authenticity of the order, and Roe was charged with forgery. The prosecution's case mainly hinged upon evidence suggesting that the date stamp on the envelope in which the money order was claimed to have been sent had been faked. Roe was found guilty and sentenced to ten years' penal labour. According to Rica Erickson
, his family always believed in his innocence.
Roe was transported to what was then the British
penal colony
of Western Australia on board the York, arriving in December 1862. He received his ticket of leave in August 1864, and took work as a privately employed schoolmaster at York
. Four months later his family arrived in Western Australia on board the Hastings. Roe met his family at Fremantle
and immediately escorted them back to York. It is said that Roe's wife refused an offer of hospitality from Bishop Hale
's wife Sabina at Fremantle, because the offer did not include her husband. During their time at York, the financial needs of the large family kept Roe and his wife separated. Susannah Roe found work teaching a class in the town, and James Roe worked at the Seven Mile Spring on the road to Guildford
, probably also as a teacher.
Roe was probably more highly qualified to teach than anyone else in the colony at the time, but his convict status, especially the fact that he had not yet received his conditional pardon, would normally have precluded him from being offered an official teaching position. However Bishop Hale, who was also chairman of the Board of Education, sympathised with the family's plight, and in 1866 he tried to secure for Roe and his wife a joint appointment to a new school at Greenough
. Unable to organise accommodation for Roe's large family, the Board of Education eventually appointed only James Roe to the position, but arranged for Susannah Roe to be offered a position at a private school in Geraldton
.
James Roe started at Greenough early in 1867, and by April the local Education Board reported positively on his progress. Susannah Roe was then transferred to his school, and the couple were finally able to live under the same roof. This arrangement was to last only nine months, however, as in January 1868, Susannah Roe was transferred to a new school at South Greenough.
Roe's relationship with his local Education Board began to sour in 1870, after the appointment of Hayes Laurence as its chairman. Roe and Laurence immediately found themselves on opposing sides of one of the most controversial issues of the day: the question of whether Catholic schools should receive a government grant. Laurence and other Protestants on the Board interpreted Roe's support for the measure as "a sign of pro-Popery". It is also thought that Roe contributed to his disfavour with the Board by voicing his strong views on school management. These issues were cited in a list of complaints sent to Roe in the middle of the year. A few months later he was late to school one day, and the local Board unanimously asked the General Board to dismiss him. The parents of forty-two of the forty-six school children signed a memorial to the General Board stating that Roe had their full confidence, but the request of the local Board was endorsed nonetheless, and Roe was dismissed.
Having been dismissed from his post, Roe was now able to speak freely on the education system in which he had worked. On 28 January 1871, he wrote a long letter to the Fremantle Herald
, outlining a series of recommendations for education reform. He proposed:
Later that year, the Elementary Education Act 1871 was passed, and some of Roe's proposals were adopted. Attendance of children who lived within three miles of a school was made compulsory, the ages of attendance was raised, and a system of inspection was introduced. Within his lifetime, Roe would see more of his measures introduced: salaries were raised and large numbers of trained teachers recruited; and responsibility for administration of government schools was passed to a minister of education responsible to parliament
.
For the next two years Roe and his family remained at Greenough. Susannah Roe continued in her teaching post at South Greenough, and Roe leased a small farm and cut sandalwood
. He also acted as agent, auctioneer and clerk for Henry Gray. He also began to work as a local correspondent for the Fremantle Herald, and in 1873 this resulted in an offer of full-time work as a reporter on the newspaper. At the end of the year, Susannah Roe resigned her job as a teacher, and the family moved to Perth
, where Roe took up his position with the Herald. Shortly afterwards he joined James Pearce and William Beresford as co-editors. He worked at the paper for the rest of his life, by which time Beresford had died, and Pearce had sold the Herald to the Inquirer.
Susannah Roe died in 1887. James Roe found it increasingly difficult thereafter to live on the money he made from the Herald, so from 1890 he also worked in his daughter's market garden
. He died in May 1897.
James Roe's daughter Helen married Patrick Stone
, who later became a Member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. His daughter Georgina married Joseph Walton
, and another daughter Agnes married Herman Moll
.
Penal transportation
Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...
to Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
. After serving his sentence he became one of the colony's ex-convict school teachers
Ex-convict school teachers in Western Australia
Following Western Australia's convict era, 37 ex-convicts were appointed school teachers in the colony. The appointment of such a large number of ex-convicts to what was considered a respectable government position was highly unusual for a penal colony, as the social stigma of conviction usually...
. Through his agitation for education reform
Education reform
Education reform is the process of improving public education. Small improvements in education theoretically have large social returns, in health, wealth and well-being. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed.A continuing motivation has...
, he played an important role in "shaping the education system and political policies in the colony". He later distinguished himself as a journalist
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
.
James Elphinstone Roe was born in Kirkby on Bain
Kirkby on Bain
Kirkby on Bain is a village and civil parish in the English county of Lincolnshire.-Geography:Kirkby on Bain lies on the River Bain between Horncastle and Coningsby just west of the A153. Administratively it forms part of the district of East Lindsey. Close by to the north is the village of...
, Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, and baptised there on 18 October 1818. His father was Rev. Thomas Roe, the town's rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
, and his mother was Catherine Sarah née Elphinstone. Nothing is known of his childhood, but in June 1836 he began studies at Worcester College, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. During his university years he was a member of the Oxford Movement
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
, an organisation that aimed to return the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
to its Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
roots, and which later collapsed after one of its leaders renounced the Church of England and converted to Catholicism. Although Roe himself remained an Anglican throughout his life, he was often sympathetic to and supportive of Catholic causes, and had a number of Catholic friends.
Roe graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1841, and is thought to have taken his holy orders
Holy Orders
The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....
shortly afterwards. In August 1843, he married Susannah Moore. They would have fourteen children, of which nine survived beyond childhood.
In 1861, James Roe was convicted in the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
of forging
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
a money order
Money order
A money order is a payment order for a pre-specified amount of money. Because it is required that the funds be prepaid for the amount shown on it, it is a more trusted method of payment than a cheque.-History of money orders:...
. Apparently Roe had expected to be left money by an uncle, Edward Roe, but a cousin had induced the uncle to make a will in the cousin's favour only a week before the uncle's death. After the uncle's death, Roe had produced a money order for £6000 apparently made out to him from the uncle. The cousin challenged the authenticity of the order, and Roe was charged with forgery. The prosecution's case mainly hinged upon evidence suggesting that the date stamp on the envelope in which the money order was claimed to have been sent had been faked. Roe was found guilty and sentenced to ten years' penal labour. According to Rica Erickson
Rica Erickson
Frederica Lucy "Rica" Erickson AM, née Sandilands, was an Australian naturalist, botanical artist, historian, author and teacher. Without any formal scientific training, she wrote extensively on botany and birds, as well as genealogy and general history...
, his family always believed in his innocence.
Roe was transported to what was then the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
penal colony
Penal colony
A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...
of Western Australia on board the York, arriving in December 1862. He received his ticket of leave in August 1864, and took work as a privately employed schoolmaster at York
York, Western Australia
York is the oldest inland town in Western Australia, situated 97 km east of Perth in the Avon Valley near Northam, and is the seat of the Shire of York...
. Four months later his family arrived in Western Australia on board the Hastings. Roe met his family at Fremantle
Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...
and immediately escorted them back to York. It is said that Roe's wife refused an offer of hospitality from Bishop Hale
Matthew Blagden Hale
Matthew Blagden Hale was the first Bishop of Perth and then the Bishop of Brisbane.Born in Alderley, Gloucestershire, England, Matthew Hale was the son of Robert and Lady Theodosia . His maternal grandfather was The Earl of Mayo, Lord Archbishop of Tuam...
's wife Sabina at Fremantle, because the offer did not include her husband. During their time at York, the financial needs of the large family kept Roe and his wife separated. Susannah Roe found work teaching a class in the town, and James Roe worked at the Seven Mile Spring on the road to Guildford
Guildford, Western Australia
Guildford is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located 13 km northeast of the city. Its Local Government Area is the City of Swan.-History:Guildford was established in 1829 on the Swan River, being sited near a permanent fresh water supply...
, probably also as a teacher.
Roe was probably more highly qualified to teach than anyone else in the colony at the time, but his convict status, especially the fact that he had not yet received his conditional pardon, would normally have precluded him from being offered an official teaching position. However Bishop Hale, who was also chairman of the Board of Education, sympathised with the family's plight, and in 1866 he tried to secure for Roe and his wife a joint appointment to a new school at Greenough
Greenough, Western Australia
Greenough is a historical town located 400 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia and 24 kilometres south of Geraldton on the Brand Highway. The historic buildings are controlled by the National Trust of Australia...
. Unable to organise accommodation for Roe's large family, the Board of Education eventually appointed only James Roe to the position, but arranged for Susannah Roe to be offered a position at a private school in Geraldton
Geraldton, Western Australia
Geraldton is a city and port in Western Australia located north of Perth in the Mid West region. Geraldton has an estimated population at June 2010 of 36,958...
.
James Roe started at Greenough early in 1867, and by April the local Education Board reported positively on his progress. Susannah Roe was then transferred to his school, and the couple were finally able to live under the same roof. This arrangement was to last only nine months, however, as in January 1868, Susannah Roe was transferred to a new school at South Greenough.
Roe's relationship with his local Education Board began to sour in 1870, after the appointment of Hayes Laurence as its chairman. Roe and Laurence immediately found themselves on opposing sides of one of the most controversial issues of the day: the question of whether Catholic schools should receive a government grant. Laurence and other Protestants on the Board interpreted Roe's support for the measure as "a sign of pro-Popery". It is also thought that Roe contributed to his disfavour with the Board by voicing his strong views on school management. These issues were cited in a list of complaints sent to Roe in the middle of the year. A few months later he was late to school one day, and the local Board unanimously asked the General Board to dismiss him. The parents of forty-two of the forty-six school children signed a memorial to the General Board stating that Roe had their full confidence, but the request of the local Board was endorsed nonetheless, and Roe was dismissed.
Having been dismissed from his post, Roe was now able to speak freely on the education system in which he had worked. On 28 January 1871, he wrote a long letter to the Fremantle Herald
Fremantle Herald
Fremantle Herald and similar names have been used for three different newspapers serving Fremantle, Western Australia: The Herald , Fremantle Herald and a current publication, founded in 1989....
, outlining a series of recommendations for education reform. He proposed:
- That attendance should be made compulsory;
- That the ages of attendance should be raised;
- That good books and teaching aids should be provided, instead of the current "execrable rubbish... bad grammar, bad English, bad taste and unutterable tediousness";
- That salaries should be raised substantially to attract decent teachers;
- That qualified inspectors should be appointed to assess the quality of teaching;
- That teaching should be secular only;
- That control of the education system should be in the hands of a secular board or minister of education.
Later that year, the Elementary Education Act 1871 was passed, and some of Roe's proposals were adopted. Attendance of children who lived within three miles of a school was made compulsory, the ages of attendance was raised, and a system of inspection was introduced. Within his lifetime, Roe would see more of his measures introduced: salaries were raised and large numbers of trained teachers recruited; and responsibility for administration of government schools was passed to a minister of education responsible to parliament
Parliament of Western Australia
The Parliament of Western Australia consists of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly . The Parliament sits at Parliament House in Harvest Terrace, Perth....
.
For the next two years Roe and his family remained at Greenough. Susannah Roe continued in her teaching post at South Greenough, and Roe leased a small farm and cut sandalwood
Sandalwood
Sandalwood is the name of a class of fragrant woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods they retain their fragrance for decades. As well as using the harvested and cut wood in-situ, essential oils are also extracted...
. He also acted as agent, auctioneer and clerk for Henry Gray. He also began to work as a local correspondent for the Fremantle Herald, and in 1873 this resulted in an offer of full-time work as a reporter on the newspaper. At the end of the year, Susannah Roe resigned her job as a teacher, and the family moved to Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, where Roe took up his position with the Herald. Shortly afterwards he joined James Pearce and William Beresford as co-editors. He worked at the paper for the rest of his life, by which time Beresford had died, and Pearce had sold the Herald to the Inquirer.
Susannah Roe died in 1887. James Roe found it increasingly difficult thereafter to live on the money he made from the Herald, so from 1890 he also worked in his daughter's market garden
Market gardening
A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. It is distinguishable from other types of farming by the diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically, from under one acre ...
. He died in May 1897.
James Roe's daughter Helen married Patrick Stone
Patrick Stone
Patrick Stone was a Member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from 1901 to 1904, and from 1905 to 1908....
, who later became a Member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. His daughter Georgina married Joseph Walton
Joseph Walton (convict)
Joseph Walton was a convict transported to Western Australia. The son of a watchmaker, Walton was born in Canada, but it was in England on 19 July 1851 that he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. Walton was transported to Western Australia on the Dudbrook,...
, and another daughter Agnes married Herman Moll
Herman Moll (convict)
Herman Joseph Moll was a convict transported to Western Australia. He was one of only four such convicts to be elected to the prestigious and respected position of member of a local Education Board.- Biography :...
.