Francis Kirk
Francis Kirk (c. 1807–1869) was one of a number of Enrolled Pensioner Guards (EPGs) who came to the Swan River Colony between 1850 and 1868, to guard and oversee the work of the prisoners transported to Western Australia.
Kirk was born at Achalive, County Tyrone c. 1807. On 28 November 1823, aged 16 years, he enlisted with the British Army at Glasgow and served as a private for 22 years with the 8th Royal Artillery. His service included eight years in Corfu. He was discharged at Woolwich on 13 October 1846 with a pension. Kirk is recorded as exhibiting exemplary conduct and was awarded four Good Conduct badges. He is described as being 5 ft 7 3⁄4 in (1.72 m) in height, with fair hair and blue eyes.
Kirk, with his wife Mary and their five-year-old son Francis, left England on 30 December 1850 on the transport Mermaid. The boat carried a number of other Pensioner Guards and their families, as well as 209 convicts, including John Acton Wroth.
They arrived at Fremantle on 21 May 1851, and travelled with a number of other Pensioner Guards to the settlement of Toodyay, where they were temporarily housed in A-framed straw huts at the first Toodyay Convict Hiring Depot and Pensioner Guard Barracks, and allotted one of the 5-acre (2.0 ha) plots of land, Lot P12, that had been surveyed for the EPGs. These allotments were later transferred to the permanent Convict Hiring Depot, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) upstream of the town.
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