12 Facts About William Redfern

William Redfern was an English-raised surgeon in early colonial Australia who was transported to New South Wales as a convict for his role in the mutiny on the Nore.

William Redfern is widely regarded as the "father of Australian medicine".

William Redfern was surgeon's apprentice to his older brother Thomas and passed the examination of the London Company of Surgeons in 1797.

William Redfern was aboard Standard in 1797 when the crew rose against the officers in the Nore mutiny.

William Redfern was granted a conditional pardon following his arrival in Sydney and was transferred to Norfolk Island as assistant surgeon to that newly established colony.

William Redfern remained on the island as assistant surgeon from May 1802 to 1808, when he returned to Sydney.

William Redfern's status was further enhanced following the arrival of Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1810.

In 1814 William Redfern reported to Macquarie on the sanitary problems of the ships transporting convicts to New South Wales.

William Redfern immediately resigned from the Colonial Medical Service and later in the same year Macquarie made him a magistrate, but this was objected to by Commissioner Bigge and the appointment was not sanctioned.

William Redfern had a large private practice as a physician, and though somewhat brusque in manner was much liked and trusted; he became the "best" and "best-known" surgeon in Sydney.

William Redfern visited England in 1821 as a delegate for the emancipists endeavouring to obtain relief from legal restrictions arising from a court decision in London, which came in the form of the New South Wales Act 1823, allowing ownership of property and "personal action at law" for those who served their sentence in New South Wales and were no longer prisoners.

William Redfern went to Edinburgh about the end of 1828 to bring his son, William Lachlan Macquarie Redfern, there for education, and he died there towards the close of July 1833.