~ 1 ~ WEBB FAMILY GENEALOGY FROM LONGTON STAFFORDSHIRE ENGLAND TO WHAKAHARA ON THE NORTHERN WAIROA RIVER NORTHLAND NEW ZEALAND ~ 2 ~ CHAPTERS FORWORD PAGE 3 CHAPTER ONE THE GOOD SHIP PARSEE PAGE 11 CHAPTER TWO GENERATION ONE FOR FAMILY ‘WEBB’ FOR JOHANNA PAGE 33 CHAPTER THREE WEBB GENERATION TWO PAGE 43 CHAPTER FOUR WEBB GENERATION THREE PAGE 101 CHAPTER FIVE WEBB GENERATION FOUR PAGE 109 CHAPTER SIX WEBB GENERATION FIVE PAGE 113 CHAPTER SEVEN MILITARY HISTORY FOR WEBB PAGE 114 CHAPTER EIGHT WEBB FAMILY HISTORY, PHOTOS AND REFERENCES PAGE 125 CHAPTER NINE NOTES FOR SAMUEL REV WEBB PAGE 165 CHAPTER TEN NOTES FOR SAMUEL WEBB AND ANN GREEN PAGE 169 CHAPTER ELEVEN THE ARATAPU WEBB’S PAGE 178 CHAPTER TWELVE WILLIAM JAMES WEBB ARTIST PAGE 214 ~ 3 ~ FORWORD Johanna’s paternal thread through her Dad, Roger Mold… (This journal is the complete paper trail…) FROM THE SEA THEY CAME… MIGRANTS ONE AND ALL Johanna’s great, great, grandad William Green WEBB and his brother Samuel Alfred Webb came out from London England on the Clipper Norham Castle arriving in Auckland 3 Dec 1872… Note: I wonder if their knowledge of New Zealand helped their father and siblings to make a decision to follow them to New Zealand as well during 1873… ~ 4 ~ AUCKLAND STAR, VOLUME III, ISSUE 857, 3 DECEMBER 1872, PAGE 2 THE PASSENGERS ~ 5 ~ ~ 6 ~ DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS, VOLUME XXVIII, ISSUE 4767, 4 DECEMBER 1872, PAGE 2 ~ 7 ~ ~ 8 ~ ~ 9 ~ DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS, VOLUME XXVIII, ISSUE 4768, 5 DECEMBER 1872, PAGE 2 DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS, VOLUME XXVIII, ISSUE 4765, 2 DECEMBER 1872, PAGE 4 ~ 10 ~ ~ 11 ~ 1 THE GOOD SHIP ‘PARSEE’ BELOW: THE SAILING SHIP PARSEE THAT SAMUEL GEORGE WEBB AND HIS FAMILY CAME OUT ON FROM LONDON, ENGLAND LANDING IN AUCKLAND MAY 7TH 1873 SAMUEL WEBB 1825 (Johanna’s great, great, great, grandfather) Note: They were Intermediate passengers on the Parsee so they probably paid their way… Samuel was a widower at the age of 54 He had been in business so ‘had old money’ as they say in the new country…perhaps upper class? ~ 12 ~ THE SHIPBOARD CLASS SYSTEM… Nineteenth-century passenger ships were like microcosms of Victorian society – complete with institutionalised class systems. ‘Cabin class’ passengers paid the most money for their fares, received the biggest cabins, could take the most luggage, and were waited on by the ship’s staff. ‘Intermediate class’ passengers paid a little less, and slept in smaller cabins. They were not waited on hand and foot like cabin class passengers, but their meals were provided, and they had few shipboard responsibilities. (Often intermediate passengers were young, adventurous single men from ‘good families’ hoping to build new lives for themselves.) Most passengers on immigrant ships to New Zealand were ‘steerage classes’. They had often received a subsidised or free passage from an emigration company or the British Colonial Office. They did not have cabins at all, and instead they lived out the voyage in tiny, dark bunkrooms below deck. They did all their own washing and cleaning, and were allocated plenty of shipboard chores. While cabin passengers had their meals cooked and brought to them, steerage passengers took turns to cook, and then gathered outside the galley to collect their meals. A cabin passenger once wrote disparagingly of the steerage emigrants, ‘There was never ending cooking going on, and a rush to the galley each for their own ... like so many dogs in a kennel let out to get food.’ (1) Indeed, the emigrants’ shipboard diaries and letters reveal a lot about the attitudes that the different classes had to each other. Martha Adams, a cabin passenger travelling to Nelson in 1850 with her husband wrote, ‘I have never been myself into the steerage, as William says it is not fit for me to go, and besides it is now so filthily dirty, that it can only be wondered at, that there is not more disease on board.’ (2) Another cabin passenger wrote, ‘ ... everybody on this ship think [sic] a great deal of themselves, and even the poorest imagine that they will be grand folk in New Zealand, it can easily be pictured what disturbances are constantly taking place among them owing to this cause. There is not I believe a single young woman on board but scouts the idea of being a servant when they land: nothing less than a piano forte and crochet seem compatible with their ideas of their own dignity; on which account, it is so difficult to get any little service performed for you, presuming you have no servant of your own.’ ~ 13 ~ (3) And Lucy Lough, a cabin passenger aboard the Egmont in 1856 made this character assassination: ‘There was a disturbance with one of the steerage girls and her father; he thrashed her for being with the Sailors in the forecastle. She is a wild girl and will not I fear be good for much by the end of the voyage.’ (4) In their leisure time, passengers often held dances. There were usually separate events for cabin and steerage passengers, although Nelly Alexander, a steerage passenger aboard the Viola in 1863 wrote with some surprise and pleasure, ‘we dance Scotch reels, country dances, quad reels, polkas and schottisches, we all dance together cabin & steerage people & the ship officers come & look on ...’ (5). But by most accounts such occasions were the exception rather than the rule. Passengers even had to restrict their movements to certain parts of the ship depending on their class. Cabin passengers were given free access to the poop deck – the stern area of the ship above the first class cabins. Steerage passengers were only allowed to roam various areas of the main deck. And nothing was more guaranteed to annoy a cabin passenger than a steerage passenger on the poop deck. The trespassers were often unceremoniously chased off! 1 1 (1) JACKSON, GAINOR W. (1991). SETTLEMENT BY SAIL: 19TH CENTURY IMMIGRATION TO NEW ZEALAND. WELLINGTON: GP PUBLICATIONS. P 30. (2) SIMPSON, TONY. (1997). THE IMMIGRANTS: THE GREAT MIGRATION FROM BRITAIN TO NEW ZEALAND 1830–1890. AUCKLAND: GODWIT PUBLISHING. P 85. (3) SIMPSON. (1997) P 88. (4) LOUGH, LUCY. (1857). DIARY ON BOARD EGMONT: 11 SEPTEMBER 1856 – 8 MAY 1857. CANTERBURY MUSEUM. TYPESCRIPT MANUSCRIPT: 248/83. (5) ALEXANDER, HELEN. (1863). SHIPBOARD DIARY ON THE VIOLA 1863. TYPESCRIPT: CL. MANUSCRIPT: M 102. OTAGO SETTLERS MUSEUM TEXT ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN TAI AWATEA, TE PAPA'S ONFLOOR MULTIMEDIA DATABASE (1998). ~ 14 ~ PARSEE Ship: 1281 tons Captain: Nelson Sailed FROM London 14th January 1873 - arrived Auckland 7th May 1873 The Parsee, a fine clipper ship of 1281 tons, was built at Greenock in 1869, and was originally intended (as may be implied by her name) for an ‘India-man’. Prior to coming to New Zealand she traded between the Clyde and India, and in the early days made some very fast runs. She completed four voyages to the Dominion, her best run being 84½ days to Port Chalmers, port to port. The Parsee was sent out first to Auckland in 1873 with five saloon passengers and 98 immigrants. She sailed from Gravesend under the command of Captain Nelson on January 14, and landed the pilot off Portland four days later. In the channel she experienced very heavy west-south-west gales and heavy cross seas, many which broke on board, doing damage and putting the passengers to discomfort. The wheel was carried away by one of these seas coming on board, the lifeboat was also washed off the davits, the main deck was filled with water, and one of the ventilators carried away, by which the 'tween decks became flooded. The weather having moderated, the vessel experienced variable winds while shaping for the southward. Canary Island was sighted on February 5th, on which day the north-east trades were picked up. These proved fresh, and were carried nearly to the line, but were lost on February 14. Crossed the Equator on February 18, and failed to derive any benefit from the south-east trades, as the winds experienced were light variables from the south to south-east, then north-east and north-west, the former prevailing. Variable winds prevailed ~ 15 ~ to the meridian of the Cape, which was passed on March 25, after sighting the island of Trinidad on March 1st. Her easting was run down parallel of 45 degrees south latitude, although the ship was carried as low as 48 degrees when off the coast of Tasmania. On April 6 a strong north-east to north and them north-west gale was encountered. On May 3 Cape Maria Van Diemen was sighted, thence variable winds down the coast, the ship arriving at Auckland on May 6. The ‘Daily Southern Cross’ announcing the ship's arrival, stated, “She brings out a fine 2 batch of immigrants, including a number of comely girls”. ARRIVAL OF THE PARSEE PASSENGERS… Name Age County Occupation Saloon Bevan Miss Emily Hember Miss Louisa Taylor Dr. Windsor Mr Henry Wood Mr Charles Intermediate Batron Hannah Painte Neville P 33 Mary E 21 Maurice 2 Harry Infant Born on board Pedder J H Chick Sutcliffe George Admiral Webb Samuel 48 Mary 18 Thomas 15 George 13 Sarah 11 Elizabeth 10 Arthur 8 2 SOURCE WHITE WINGS SIR HENRY BRETT ~ 16 ~ John 6 Charles 4 Families and Children Andrews William 28 Middlesex Labourer Caroline 22 Sarah 2 Jane 7 mths Collins James 24 Surrey Painter Helen 23 Frith Abraham 47 Yorkshire Bootmaker Eliza 40 Thomas T 19 Trans to s/m Elizabeth 16 Trans to s/w Hill Hugh 26 Cornwall Labourer Emma 25 Nellie 3 Mary Ann 10 mths Lush Thomas 38 Berkshire Coachsmith Mary 38 Thomas D 18 Trans to s/m Mitchell Isiah 29 Yorkshire Woolsorter Charlotte 30 Joseph 9 Ishmael 5 Molloy John 24 Kings Co Farm Labourer Teresa 20 Oliver John 38 Surrey Tinsmith Emma 37 Orbler William 30 Kent Labourer Sarah 28 Wright John 42 Tyrone Farm Labourer Ellen 40 Lettitia 19 Trans to s/w George 17 Trans to s/m Sarah 16 Trans to s/w John 15 Trans to s/m Eleanor J 9 ~ 17 ~ Colonial Nominated Clarken Peter 54 Monaghan Labourer Ellen 50 Owen 18 Trans to s/m Rowe Nathaniel 20 Cornwall Tunnel Miner Louisa 19 Brice Sarah 50 Trans to s/w Widow.