ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 602, 2 March 1929, Page 6

ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR

OLDEST EUROPEAN WOMAN MRS. FRANCES WEBB The 104tli anniversary of her birthday will be celebrated to-day by Mrs. Frances Webb, of Feilding. Mrs. V/ebb is regarded as the oldest European woman in New Zealand. Mrs. Webb was born at Silverwell, in the county of Cornwall, in 1825, in the reign of King George IV. She -has, therefore, lived under the reigns of live British sovereigns, and was 12 years old when Queen Victoria ascended the throne. Mrs. Webb, whose maiden name was Frances Harris, lived in Cornwall until her marriage in ISSI to Mr. William Webb, at Darley Chapel, Linkinhorne, Liskeard, Cornwall. With her husband, Mrs. Webb sailed from Liverpool just before Christmas, 1857, for Australia, in the American sailer Tornado, which took six months to accomplish the voyage. Arriving in Melbourne, they later went to the gold diggings at Bendigo, where Mr. Webb introduced the first gold quartz crushing plant that came to Australia, After some years at Bendigo, Mrs. Webb and her husband went to the diggings in Otago, and lived subsequently at Dunedin, Hokitika, and New Plymouth. She now lives with one of her two daughters, Mrs. G. H. Foote.