Anna Josepha (Coombe) King (bef. 1765 - 1844)

Born before 22 Feb 1765 in Hatherleigh, Devon, England

Ancestors

Wife of Philip Gidley King — married 11 Mar 1791 in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, England

Descendants

Died 26 Jul 1844 after age 79 in Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Greig Bannister [send private message], John Faulks [send private message], and Kathryn Griffin [send private message]

Biography

Anna Josepha Coombe was born in 1765 at Hatherleigh in Devonshire ^[1]. At the age of 26 she married her first cousin Philip Gidley King who was a 33 year old officer in the Royal Navy. He had recently returned from Norfolk Island where he had been in charge of establishing a penal settlement for two years under the direction of Captain Arthur Phillip.

The marriage took place on 11 March 1791 at St Martin in the Fields, London^{[2] [3]}. Only four days later the couple sailed for Norfolk Island where King was to resume his duties as Lieutenant-Governor of the penal colony.

Six weeks after she landed on Norfolk Island, her son Phillip Parker was born; in the next four years she had two daughters, one of whom died young. But even before her own son was born she had to care for Norfolk King, the elder of her husband's two illegitimate sons born during his earlier term on the island. During King's absence in England both boys had probably gone to Sydney with their convict mother; but in 1791 Norfolk returned to the island with his father. Later, both boys were sent to England, where King had them educated.

For Mrs King's first fifteen months on the island she had for company the wife of Captain William Paterson of the New South Wales Corps, but after the Patersons' departure no other officer's wife came to share her exile until King's term was nearly ended. Her health was unreliable, the atmosphere on the island frequently discordant, food often short, communication with the outside world uncertain; she had a tempestuous, energetic, kindly, port-drinking and often ailing husband to care for, as well as her own infant children.

In 1796 they returned to England because of King's ill health. When King was appointed lieutenant-governor of New South Wales he and his wife sailed from England in the Speedy in November 1799. Mrs King kept a journal of this, her third voyage across the world. Only their youngest child, Elizabeth, sailed with them; Phillip and Maria, for their supposed educational advantage, were left behind, Maria with friends, the Enderbys of whaling fame, and Phillip with a tutor who was to let the parents have news of him twice a year.

In Sydney Mrs King found her husband and therefore herself on a stage much larger than that of Norfolk Island and presenting a more complex and important drama, involving a larger cast. She fully shared her husband's anxieties and labours; indeed, the influence she was thought to have over him earned her the nickname of 'Queen Josepha'. But one activity, strongly supported by the governor, was her own plan to mitigate the depravity of the Sydney scene by helping the hordes of neglected children that roamed its streets. The segregation and training of numbers of girl-waifs in what became known as Mrs King's Orphanage was the object of her daily attention and that of Mrs Paterson, her friend from Norfolk Island days and her friend again in Sydney whenever the quarrels of King and the military allowed.

In 1806 King, defeated by gout and opposition, was relieved by Captain William Bligh, and in a second sea-journal Mrs King described their nightmare nine-month voyage to England next year. King died in September 1808, leaving his wife and family in real need. The Treasury's meagre help was long in coming to his widow; but after a time she began to get financial relief from two sources in New South Wales: from cattle and from the land on which the cattle grazed, though her title to the first was vague and to the second illegal. The cattle were the flourishing descendants of a few beasts lost in the settlement's early days; two cows among them had belonged to Governor Arthur Phillip, who in 1801 remitted to King his claim on their progeny; her land was a grant of 790 acres (320 ha) made to her by Bligh in return for one, also illegal, made to Bligh by King. The ownership of Bligh's heiresses was challenged and their case was not settled until 1841; but Mrs King seems to have been left in undisturbed enjoyment of her grant at South Creek and the profits from both land and what Governor Lachlan Macquarie described in 1810 as 'her fine numerous herds of horned cattle, of which she has upwards of 700 Head of all descriptions'.

Mrs King spent nearly twenty-four almost undocumented years in England before she was able to return, as she had long wished, to the colony where she had passed the most important part of her life. Two of her three daughters were settled there, Maria, wife of Hannibal Macarthur and Mary (b.1805), wife of Robert Lethbridge; her distinguished son, Captain P. P. King, was about to settle there too. She sailed with him for Sydney in 1832.

At The Vineyard, Parramatta, the home of her daughter Maria, she was a valued part of an active family life until she died there on 26 July 1844. A stalwart member of the Church of England, she was buried in the graveyard of St Mary's, Penrith, formerly South Creek.^{[4] [5]}

Alternate name - spelling

Name: Anna Josepha /Coombs/ ^[6][7]

Sources

1. ↑ Source: #S2811 Birth 1765 Dth 26 Jul 1844 Anna Josepha Coombs KING, Wife of Captain Philip Gidley King, Royal Navy. Governor of New South Wales (Aust). Died at St Marys in NSW at the age of 79 years, bur. St Mary Magdalene Cem., Sydney, NSW, from Memorial #17653833, extracted Sep 2014
2. ↑ Hereford Journal - Wednesday 16 March 1791
3. ↑ Source: #S1597 Marr. 11 Mar 1791 Philip Gidley KING & Anna Josepha COOMBS, St Martin in the Fields, Westminster, LND, from England Marriages 1538 - 1973, https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NJYP-K6V films 561159, 561160, 561161, 561162 batch M00145-3, extracted from index Sep 2014
4. ↑ Entered by Kathryn Griffin
5. ↑ Source: #S2811 Birth 1765 Dth 26 Jul 1844 Anna Josepha Coombs KING, Wife of Captain Philip Gidley King, Royal Navy. Governor of New South Wales (Aust). Died at St Marys in NSW at the age of 79 years, bur. St Mary Magdalene Cem., Sydney, NSW, from Memorial #17653833, extracted Sep 2014
6. ↑ Source: #S1597 Marr. 11 Mar 1791 Philip Gidley KING & Anna Josepha COOMBS, St Martin in the Fields, Westminster, LND, from England Marriages 1538 - 1973, https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NJYP-K6V films 561159, 561160, 561161, 561162 batch M00145-3, extracted from index Sep 2014
7. ↑ Source: #S2811 Birth 1765 Dth 26 Jul 1844 Anna Josepha Coombs KING, Wife of Captain Philip Gidley King, Royal Navy. Governor of New South Wales (Aust). Died at St Marys in NSW at the age of 79 years, bur. St Mary Magdalene Cem., Sydney, NSW, from Memorial #17653833, extracted Sep 2014

• Marnie Bassett, 'King, Anna Josepha (1765–1844)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
• Reference: 70960
• Pallot's Marriage Index for England: 1780 - 1837
• Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, (MUP), 1967
• Australia Death Index, 1787-1985
• Source: S1597 FamilySearch Labs Record Search (LDS), Url: http://search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/
• Source: S2811 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17653833/anna-josepha-king

Acknowledgments

• Thanks to Kathryn Griffin for starting this profile.
• Coombs-730 was created by Lorna Henderson through the import of RuncimanArtistsAndWoburnAlanLornaCombined.ged on Dec 5, 2014 and merged with Coombe-73