eighteen years of age he apprenticed himself to a builder and a sawyer, and laboured for some years in a saw-pit. In Hobart the young Fawkner assisted his father (who had obtained a conditional pardon) in his bakery, timber business and brewery, taking charge of the bakery in Macquarie Street.

In 1814 he fell into trouble, "aiding and abetting", in an attempted escape from Van Diemen's Land to South America, seven transported convicts; Antonio Martinio, Forteso De Santo, Patrick McCabe, Vissanso Boucherie, Antonio Janio, Montrose Johnson