E B Norton spent only a short time in Melbourne but made his mark in farming, land-owning and subdivision of Yarra Grange on the banks of the Yarra in Abbotsford. The youngest son of the Reverend Eardley Norton, rector of Blythburgh cum Walberswick in Suffolk, he was farming at Elsternwick or East St Kilda shortly after arriving in Melbourne.

Richard Norton was a respected and well-known member of Collingwood society, despite his origins. A chair maker in London, he was convicted of theft in 1831, sentenced to transportation, and arrived in NSW on 22 July 1832. Obtaining his Certificate of Freedom in 1839, he had arrived in Melbourne by 1844 when his third child was born. He eventually married his children’s mother, Ann Laing, in 1849 and the couple added to their family until Ann’s death in 1860.