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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

I have decided to write a book about the first two generations of the NSW Mawbeys containing new information not published on this blog.
Here is a summary of the story so far.
George Mawbey, the forbear of NSW Mawbey family arrived in the colony of New South Wales c.1832.
His first appearance on the public record is as an actor/singer in newspaper advertisements for performances at Sydney's first professional theatre, the Theatre Royal.
The next is as a witness in support of his former employer at a case in the Supreme Court of Sydney.
Prior to his actual testimony, he had a letter to the editor of the Australian newspaper published about the matter.
After leaving this employer, an ex-convict wealthy ironmonger, for whom he had worked as a clerk prior to the trial, George Mawbey had set up his own business as a tin man.
He then obtained a publican's licence which he held for a year, and married Ann Williams at St Phillip's Church of England in Sydney.
His next career move was to go to the newly established province of South Australia and set up a Refreshment Rooms business in the heart of the main town of Adelaide.
After about a year, he and his wife moved back to Sydney.
George then appears to have taken a job as a clerk for a bookseller, and to have started a family.
After his two eldest sons died at a young age, he moved his family about 50 km north-west of Sydney to the farming and orcharding district of Dural.
There he worked as the schoolmaster in the local Church of England diocesan school for around eight years.
Four of his children were baptised in the neighbouring St Jude's Church of England.
George Mawbey, his wife and their seven surviving children then moved back to Sydney.
His last child was born three months before he died of a stroke in November 1862.
George's widow was left to raise eight children, the eldest being 17.
She lived in various places in Newtown, now an inner suburb of Sydney, and at one stage appears to have had a fruit shop in the main street there.
Her eldest surviving son, John Thomas, also had a fruit shop, in Mudgee where his wife's family lived.
Her eldest surviving daughter, Alice, married a young London-born fruiterer.
Only four of George and Ann Mawbey's children had children of their own.
The NSW Mawbey's extended family will be the subject of my book.