Joseph Walton was a convict transported

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...

. The son of a watchmaker, Walton was born in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, but it was in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 on 19 July 1851 that he was convicted of burglary

Burglary

Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...

 and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude

Penal labour

Penal labour is a form of unfree labour in which prisoners perform work, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence which involve penal labour include penal servitude and imprisonment with hard labour...

. Walton was transported to Western Australia on the Dudbrook, arriving in February 1853. After obtaining his ticket of leave, he worked as a carpenter

Carpenter

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

. He received his conditional pardon in July 1856, and the following month he married Fanny Kenney. Over the next few years he worked in the Avon and 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...

 districts; his wife did not accompany him and the fact that he was married was not known. Walton took up land at Greenough, and built a hotel there. Later he won a number of contracts to build government buildings, including a one-room school

One-room school

One-room schools were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In most rural and small town schools, all of the students met in a single room...

, a police station and a courthouse.

In the late 1860s and early 1870s Greenough suffered severely from flood

Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...

, bushfire, wheat rust

Rust (fungus)

Rusts are plant diseases caused by pathogenic fungi of the order Pucciniales. About 7800 species are known. Rusts can affect a variety of plants; leaves, stems, fruits and seeds. Rust is most commonly seen as coloured powder, composed off tiny aeciospores which land on vegetation producing...

 and sheep scab

Scab

Scab can refer to the following:* Scab, a hard coating on the skin formed during the wound healing reconstruction phase* Derogatory term for a strikebreaker, a person who works despite strike action or against the will of other employees...

. Correctly anticipating a recession

Recession

In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...

, Walton sold his hotel in 1872, and purchased a small coastal trading boat, the Alexandra. In December the following year, he married Georgina Roe, daughter of James Elphinstone Roe

James Elphinstone Roe

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"...

. The couple then sailed for Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, where they had a son. Eventually Georgina Roe discovered her husband's bigamy

Polygamy

Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...

, and in 1876 Walton left Singapore for Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

. He did not return.