Researching John Stapleton

Stapleton was the fourth son of Thomas Stapleton, of Carlton Hill, Yorkshire, and his wife Maria Juliana Gerard, daughter of Sir Robert Gerard, bt. Stapleton was educated at the University of Edinburgh, Göttingen and Berlin. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1833, but later moved to the Middle Temple. He went on the Northern circuit.

At the 1852 general election, Stapleton was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Berwick upon Tweed but was unseated on petition. He was elected in 1857 but lost the seat in 1859. At the 1868 general election Stapleton was re-elected for Berwick and held the seat until his defeat at the 1874.

Stapleton died at the age of 75.

Stapleton married Frances Dorothea King, second daughter of Edward Bolton King, of Chadshunt, Warwickshire. They had three sons and four daughters.

The first money he ever made out of writing was in 1974 when he was co-winner of a short story competition held by what was then Australia's leading cultural celebration, the Adelaide Arts Festival.

He graduated from Macquarie University in 1975 with a double major in philosophy and did post-graduate work with the Sociology Department at Flinders University.

As a freelance journalist in the 1970s and 1980s, while alternating between living in Sydney and London, his articles and fiction appeared in a wide range of magazines, newspapers and anthologies, including The Australian Financial Review.

John Stapleton worked on The Sydney Morning Herald as a staff news reporter between 1986 and 1994. The paper was then listed as one of the Top 20 newspapers in the world.

He worked for the national newspaper The Australian from 1994 to 2009.

His books include: Thailand: Deadly Destination, Terror in Australia: Workers' Paradise Lost, Hideout in the Apocalypse and the soon to be re-released Hunting the Famous. His new book Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia will be available in August of 2021.

As a news reporter, Stapleton encountered and wrote many hundreds of stories about everyone from street alcoholics to Australian Prime Ministers; from the staple flood, drought, fire and natural disasters of the Australian bush to scenes of urban dysfunction.

In 2000 he became co-founder of the world's longest running radio program on father's issues, Dads on the Air.

After leaving The Australian, Stapleton established A Sense of Place Magazine and the niche publishing company A Sense of Place Publishing.