An early white settler of the Swan River Colony in Western Australia, W. K. Shenton arrived on the Lotus in 1829. He is recorded on 29 September 1829 as having a grant of 100 acres on the Helena River with a further grant in 1830. Shenton edited and published in manuscript one of the early newspapers, the Western Australian Chronicle and Perth Gazette, in the colony. Five issues were written in long hand, no. 1, 19 February 1831 to no. 5, 19 March 1831. On 25 April 1831 Shenton, with Charles Macfaull (q.v.) published a newspaper The Fremantle Observer, Perth Gazette, and Western Australian Chronicle on a hand-printing press, the first newspaper printed and published in Western Australia. After a few months the partnership was dissolved and the paper carried on by Macfaull.
In the early 1830s Shenton distributed stores in Fremantle and built a mill at Point Belches (now Mill Point, South Perth). He explored the Collie River from Port Leschenault in 1831.
Shenton drowned on a voyage to Bunbury in 1842.
Source: Battye, J. S., Western Australia: A History from its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth, A Project Gutenberg for Australia ebook database, www.gutenberg.net.au (Sighted 09/04/2009); State Library of Western Australia catalogue record for Western Australian Chronicle and Perth Gazette (Sighted 08/10/2009).
