1. William Redfern's sentence was later commuted and in 1801 he was transported to New South Wales and assigned as an assistant to the Norfolk Island hospital.
33 Facts About William Redfern
1. 2.
William Redfern was born in Canada, the third son of Robert and Margaret Redfern from Northern Ireland.
3.
In 1790 William Redfern became a surgeon's apprentice to his older brother Thomas.
4.
When William Redfern joined the Royal Navy, Britain had been at war with the Spanish, French and Dutch for four years.
5.
William Redfern spent three years in Coldbath Fields prison, England's cruellest gaol.
6.
At an interview with Fitzpatrick, prisoner William Redfern requested transportation as soon as possible, and to be allowed to work on the convict ship as a surgeon.
7.
In January 1801 William Redfern was moved to the prison hulk Captivity docked in Portsmouth.
8.
Mid voyage William Redfern was urgently transferred to the Minorca to treat two very sick patients.
9.
William Redfern was on the Minorca when the convoy reached Port Jackson on 15 December 1801.
10.
Shortly after arriving in Sydney, William Redfern was shipped to Norfolk Island.
11.
William Redfern arrived on 8 January 1802 and was made a convict assistant to the hospital surgeon James Mileham.
12.
In 1804 assistant surgeon D'Arcy Wentworth arrived on Norfolk Island to take charge of the hospital and William Redfern remained as his assistant.
13.
William Redfern passed the examination and was awarded the first medical diploma issued in Australia.
14.
In September 1809 William Redfern vaccinated children across the colony against smallpox, after ensuring that the community was well informed of the advantages of the inoculation.
15.
William Redfern treated mostly convicts and the disadvantaged at the general hospital, but he ran a busy private medical practise.
16.
William Redfern later became the governor's personal physician, travel companion and close confidant.
17.
In March 1811 William Redfern married Sarah Wills and they had two sons; William Redfern Lachlan Macquarie was born in 1819 and Robert Joseph Foveaux in 1823.
18.
In 1812 William Redfern accepted James Sheers as a surgeon apprentice at the hospital.
19.
Later William Redfern was appointed to lead an inquiry into the infections and high death rate on the three ships and he recommended major reforms to sanitation, diet, air circulation and medical assistance on convict transports.
20.
William Redfern remained a director until 1820 and was again elected in 1827.
21.
Macquarie had recently recommended William Redfern to be the next Principal Surgeon when D'Arcy Wentworth retired, but Bathurst opposed emancipists in major government posts and had selected naval surgeon James Bowman instead.
22.
William Redfern was devastated by his rejection and promptly resigned as the senior hospital surgeon, closed his private practice and moved immediately with his family to their Campbellfield farm in Minto.
23.
Macquarie was distressed that Bathurst had ignored his advice, and to compensate he appointed William Redfern to be a magistrate in the District of Airds.
24.
Bigge would later claim that William Redfern was the only person in the colony who resisted the Commission's authority.
25.
William Redfern expected personal condemnation in the report but was incensed at the explicitness of the publication.
26.
Lachlan Macquarie, who had returned to London in July 1822, was upset by the severity of the inquiry report, and so was William Redfern Wentworth, D'Arcy Wentworth's eldest son, who was a barrister in London.
27.
In December 1822 William Redfern engaged Wentworth to sue Bigge for damage to his character and reputation.
28.
On his return trip from England in 1824, William Redfern had brought vine cuttings and a Portuguese winemaker from Madeira to start a vineyard at Campbellfield.
29.
From 1829 to 1831, while his son attended school in Edinburgh William Redfern enrolled to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh.
30.
On 17 July 1833 William Redfern died after a short illness and is buried in Edinburgh.
31.
William Redfern is widely regarded as a 'Father of Australian medicine'.
32.
William Redfern has been named on street signs and parks in cities and towns across Australia.
33.
In 1961 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation televised The Outcasts, a historical drama in twelve episodes, in which William Redfern was the central figure.