William Cant was born in Mount Bures in 1830, son of Abraham Cant agricultural labourer.
At the age of 20 he emigrated to Australia to seek his fortune on the sailing vessel "Sophia"
The ship departed Plymouth during April 1850 arriving in Fremantle on July 27th taking some 13 weeks at sea.
Just remember this youth was only 20 when he undertook this hazadous voyage, never having been outside the confines of Mount Bures.

After 4 years in Australia he achieved notoriety by taking part in the disastrous Royal Geographical Society`s Austin Expedition to survey Western Australia in 1854. There he was called "Chainer" Cant presumably because he was involved with the expeditions survey equipment.

In 1854, Robert Austin led a government-subsidized party of ten men with twenty-seven horses and provisions for four months in search of pastoral land inland from an area near Perth (Northam) and northward.

Three years earlier, gold rushes had begun in eastern Australia, and it was said that Austin’s expedition was also to keep an eye on gold prospects.
The party was provisioned for 120 days

Austin’s party left the Northam area on 7 July 1854 and proceeded into the interior of SW Australia. The subsidiary group left the main party east of Lake Moore, and returned to Perth.

After Lake Moore, the area became increasingly arid, and soon tragedy struck: the horses ate a poisonous weed that was unfamiliar to the group, and only three of the original 27 survived the journey. The men spent a great deal of time and energy treating the horses but they continued to die one by one, or in small groups. Soon after this event, a popular youthful member of the group, Charles Farmer, accidentally shot himself in the arm and died slowly and in agony of tetanus, watched helplessly by his companions.

The party, now with only twelve weakened and dying horses, buried some equipment and specimens near the grave. They pressed on with low water rations, but had a brief respite in finding water and pasture at a site they named Mount Welcome. They then headed west- northwest until they began suffering advanced stages of dehydration and exhaustion. Austin went ahead to find all waterholes dry and returned to the men. They had buried themselves in holes that they had scratched in sand under bushes, and covered themselves with horse rugs and blankets to shelter from the heat.
Austin recorded temperatures on one day as follows:-
8am:-89deg, 10am:-104deg, Noon;-109deg, 2pm:- 110deg, 6pm:- 103deg. The direct heat was intense, most probably in excess of 120deg at Noon.

With a lack of horses and water the party desperately made their way back to civilisation and safety near to the coast at Shark bay.