Arthur Orton butcher and presumed imposter, was born in Wapping, London. He arrived in Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) about 1853 and from there moved to Gippsland in 1855.
According to Michael Roe in his biography of Orton, published in the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, '[Orton's] career then became obscure, but essentially it was an exemplar of the outback worker's life: gold-mining, mail-running, station work, tinged with hints of bushranging and even murder ... through the Riverina to Wagga Wagga, where he settled as a butcher's help from early 1864 under the name of Thomas Castro.'
Roe goes on to write that '... in 1865, encouraged by a local Wagga solicitor, William Gibbes, ... [Orton] responded to world-wide advertisement seeking one Roger Tichborne, heir to an ancient Hampshire baronetcy. Roger (b.1829) evidently had drowned off South America in 1854, but his mother refused to accept this ...' Orton claimed to be Roger Tichborne.
Orton returned to Britain late in 1866 to pursue his claim but he was convicted of perjury in March 1874 . He died in London on 1 April 1898.
Source: Michael Roe, 'Orton, Arthur (1834–1898)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/orton-arthur-4341/text7047, accessed 9 September 2013.
