The William Webb Wagg investigation (4)
Part 4: Roots in Norwich, Norfolk
Methodological note: This post examines the William's family using documentary records; the DNA evidence is addressed separately in the following post.
By mid-1850, the Tasmanian record for William Wagg ends. His probation was formally revoked after he failed to appear at muster, and from that point onward he disappears from official oversight. When he next appears in the documentary record, in 1853, he is in Sydney — working at sea under the name William Webb and marrying Sarah Turner as William Wagg. To bridge that gap, and to assess the family information recorded in the Tasmanian convict indents, this part of the investigation turns back to England to examine what can be established from contemporary English records about William’s origins and immediate family in Norwich.
We begin by examining what can be established about William’s early life, parents, and siblings from English records alone, before turning to DNA evidence to test and refine those findings. The aim is not to replace documentary research with genetic evidence, but to assess whether the family relationships William himself reported can be supported — or challenged — by independent sources.
The English starting point: Trial, place and later confirmation
The earliest fixed point in William’s English life is his trial at the Norfolk Assizes on 31 July 1843. Multiple independent records confirm that William Wagg was convicted of burglary and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. At the time of trial, his age was recorded as 18, placing his birth around 1824–1825.
These records firmly locate William in Norfolk immediately prior to his transportation and establish a narrow and internally consistent age range that carries through his later colonial records.
Importantly, Tasmanian documents refine this geographic attribution further. Both the convict indents and subsequent probation records identify Norwich as William’s native place. While “Norfolk” appears in formal court records, the repeated specification of Norwich across colonial sources points to a more precise place of origin within the county.
This identification is echoed much later in William’s life. His death notice, published in Sydney, describes him as “late of Norwich, England” and includes the request “Home papers please copy.” Although recorded decades after his trial and transportation, this notice reflects the same place of origin consistently stated across earlier records and suggests that William himself continued to identify Norwich as his point of origin throughout his life.
Taken together, the trial records, Tasmanian convict documentation, and the later death notice form a coherent and mutually reinforcing body of evidence. They establish not only where William was prosecuted, but where he came from, and they provide a stable geographic framework within which the family information recorded in the Tasmanian convict indent must be assessed. That information should therefore be read not as hearsay, but as self-reported detail given by a young man whose origins were still recent and whose immediate family connections remained intact at the time of transportation.
Norwich and King Street: Local context
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| Map showing the location of Norfolk in eastern England and the city of Norwich |
William’s English records consistently locate him in Norwich, a city that by the early nineteenth century was one of the largest provincial centres in England. Norwich in the 1820s and 1830s was densely populated, economically strained, and marked by sharp contrasts between established trades and growing urban poverty.
Much of the city’s population lived in tightly packed streets and courts, particularly south of the city centre, where working-class households clustered close to employment and poor relief institutions. King Street, where William’s offence was recorded, ran through one of these older, heavily occupied areas, lined with small dwellings, yards, and workshops rather than large commercial premises.
In this setting, offences such as housebreaking were treated seriously under English law, regardless of the value of the items taken. William’s conviction for entering a house in King Street and taking an iron pot reflects not an isolated rural theft, but an offence committed within a crowded urban environment where property crime was both common and harshly prosecuted.
This context matters. It places William within a working-class urban landscape shaped by insecurity and limited opportunity, and it explains both the severity of the sentence imposed and the later importance of Norwich as a remembered place — referenced again decades later in his Australian death notice, which asked that “home papers” be notified.
Family information recorded by William
The Tasmanian convict indent records a small but significant set of family details provided by William himself at the time of his arrival in Van Diemen’s Land. He identified his mother as Ann, a brother Christopher, and sisters Mary, Susan, and Adelaide.
This information was not derived from English parish records or official correspondence, but was supplied directly by the convict during the indent process. Colonial authorities routinely gathered such details to assist with identification, correspondence, and administrative control, and they relied on the prisoner’s own account. In William’s case, these family connections were recorded at a point when his separation from England was recent and his immediate family relationships were still current.
The internal consistency of this information is notable. The naming pattern recorded in the indent aligns closely with the names later given by William to his own children, including Mary Ann, Christopher, and Adelaide. While naming conventions alone cannot establish proof of relationship, such correspondences are often meaningful when they appear alongside documentary and chronological consistency.
What is equally important is what the indent does not record. No father is named. This omission is not uncommon in convict records and may reflect death, estrangement, or uncertainty rather than absence. The presence of a named mother and multiple siblings, however, indicates that William was able to supply detailed family information rather than a vague or fabricated account.
These recorded family details provide a defined framework for further investigation. They establish a working hypothesis: a mother named Ann and a sibling group including Christopher, Mary, Susan, and Adelaide, living in or around Norwich in the early nineteenth century. The task that follows is not to assume these relationships as fact, but to test them against independent English records—parish baptisms, civil registrations, and household listings—to determine whether such a family group can be identified and whether it aligns chronologically and geographically with William’s known life.
Searching for William in English records
The family information recorded in the Tasmanian convict indent provides a defined starting point rather than an open-ended search. With a named mother (Ann), a stated native place (Norwich), and a group of siblings identified by name, the task becomes one of testing whether a coherent family unit matching those details can be identified in contemporary English records.
Initial searches focused on parish baptism records for Norwich and its immediate surrounds, examining children with the relevant names born within a timeframe consistent with William’s recorded age at trial and transportation. As expected in a city the size of Norwich, the surname Wagg appears in multiple parishes and across several decades. While individual baptisms could be identified, no single parish grouping immediately reproduced the full sibling set recorded by William in Tasmania.
At that point, the search broadened deliberately to include census records. Unlike parish registers, which document individuals in isolation, census returns provide a household-level snapshot, allowing family relationships to be assessed collectively rather than piecemeal. This shift proved decisive.
After extensive searching, a family group was identified in the 1841 census of Norwich whose composition closely mirrors the information William later supplied. [1] The household is headed by Ann Wegg, aged 40, whose occupation is recorded as weaver. Living with her are seven children:
Mary Wegg, aged 15
Sarah Wegg, aged 15
William Wegg, aged 12
Elizabeth Wegg, aged 9
Susan Wegg, aged 7
Adelaide Wegg, aged 5
Christopher Wegg, aged 3
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| 1841 England census entry for the Wegg household, Norwich [1] |
The structure of this household aligns closely with the family information recorded in the Tasmanian convict indent. William named his mother as Ann and identified siblings Christopher, Mary, Susan, and Adelaide — all of whom appear together here, in Norwich, at exactly the right period. The presence of additional siblings, Sarah and Elizabeth, does not undermine that correspondence. Convict indents did not always record every sibling, and younger children in particular were often omitted.
Notably, the surname in the census is recorded as Wegg, rather than Wagg. This variation does not indicate a different family, but reflects common nineteenth-century spelling instability. Census enumerators typically recorded names phonetically, and spelling variation across records — even within the same family — was normal, particularly among working-class households and those with limited literacy. Variants such as Wagg and Wegg are entirely consistent with contemporary practice.
This census finding reframes the earlier parish-based search. Rather than indicating an absence of relevant records, it suggests that the family was recorded under a spelling variant at this point in time. Crucially, the combination of mother’s name, sibling names, ages, occupation, and location forms a single, internally consistent household that closely reflects the information William later provided in Tasmania.
At this stage, the evidence remains documentary rather than conclusive. Census records establish household composition and place, but they do not, on their own, prove identity across continents. Their value lies in narrowing the field from many possible families to a single, clearly defined family group. That group can now be tested against parish baptisms, civil registrations, and — critically — DNA evidence.
The purpose of this stage of the investigation is therefore not to assert final conclusions, but to move from an open search to a bounded hypothesis: a specific Norwich family whose structure matches William’s own account, and whose relationships can now be examined using independent and complementary lines of evidence.
This post focuses on the Wegg family as established through documentary records. The DNA evidence will be examined in a subsequent post, allowing each line of evidence to be assessed clearly and without unnecessary length.
Full transcriptions, citations, and supporting records for the individuals discussed in this post are available in my public Ancestry tree (“Mossie9953 DNA Research Tree”), which is updated as new evidence emerges.
Reconstructing the Wegg Family (Documentary evidence)
The Wegg family structure outlined below is reconstructed from parish registers, civil registrations, census returns, and burial records from Norwich and surrounding parishes. Taken together, these sources consistently identify William Wegg and Mary Ann Clark as the parents of a group of children born in Norwich between 1819 and 1836.
A note on St Paul’s, Norwich. Many of the key records used in this reconstruction originate from the parish of St Paul, an ancient Norwich church founded in the early twelfth century on the north-eastern edge of the medieval city. The parish served a long-established residential and working population and maintained a continuous run of parish registers throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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| St Paul’s, Norwich (historic view). A postcard and archival images of St Paul’s Church, Norwich — an ancient parish church founded in the early 12th century — showing the building before its destruction in the Second World War. [3] |
St Paul’s also appears as the civil parish in the censuses for the Wegg household, reflecting the dual ecclesiastical and civil role of parishes at this period. It is within this consistent parish framework that the Wegg family appears repeatedly across baptisms, marriages, burials, and census records in the first half of the nineteenth century.
William Wegg and Mary Ann Clark
William Wegg married Mary Ann Clark on 23 February 1819 at St Paul’s Church, Norwich. [2] This marriage provides the documentary anchor for the Wegg family reconstructed in this post, establishing both the parental couple and a fixed location in Norwich at the outset of the family’s formation.
Mary Ann Wegg appears in contemporary records under both the given names Mary Ann and Ann, and with her family name recorded as Clark or Clarke. Her marriage and several parish records record her as Ann Clarke, while records relating to her death identify her as Mary Ann. A birth record for a Mary Ann Clark in Norwich provides a plausible identification on the balance of probability, consistent with the later records and naming patterns observed within the family. In the absence of any conflicting evidence, this identification is adopted here for the purposes of reconstructing the Wegg family.
This interpretation is reinforced by multiple baptismal records for the couple’s children — including both sons named William and their daughters Sarah Ann and Elizabeth — all of which record the mother as Mary Ann Clark Wegg. The consistent use of this form across independent parish entries reflects a contemporary understanding of her identity and illustrates the flexible treatment of given names and surname spelling within nineteenth-century parish records.
In the years following the marriage, parish registers from Norwich record a series of baptisms attributed to William and Mary Ann Wegg. These baptisms are closely clustered in time and place, spanning the period from 1819 to 1836 and occurring across the same group of Norwich parishes. Taken together, they indicate a stable family unit resident in the city over an extended period.
William Wegg died in Norwich in early July 1838 at the age of 38. [4] His death provides a clear terminus for the appearance of further children in the parish registers and explains the absence of later baptisms attributable to the couple.
He was buried on 3 July 1838 in the Church of England parish of St Paul’s, Norwich. William’s occupation is recorded as a basket weaver at the baptism of his youngest child, Christopher Henry Wegg. [5] Born on 4 February 1800, William died at the age of 38, leaving his wife, Mary Ann, widowed with seven surviving children whose ages at the time ranged from approximately two to eighteen years.
Mary Ann Wegg survived her husband by several decades and appears consistently in later records as a widow, remaining in Norfolk until her death in late 1875. [6] Her continued presence in the documentary record provides continuity between the early parish evidence and the subsequent lives of the Wegg children.
Together, these records establish William Wegg and Mary Ann Clarke as a married couple resident in Norwich from at least 1819 until William’s death in 1838, forming the parental framework for the Wegg family examined below.
Occupational context. The occupations recorded for William and Mary Ann Wegg — basket weaver and weaver — were well established trades in Norwich and the surrounding Norfolk region during the first half of the nineteenth century. Norwich had long been a centre for textile production, while basket making formed part of a broader network of craft and manual trades supporting both urban households and the local agricultural economy. These occupations are consistent with the parish and census records for St Paul’s and reflect the working population served by the parish during this period.
Left: Basket weaver at work, early nineteenth century (representative image). A period-style depiction of a basket weaver engaged in hand weaving using willow rods, illustrating the type of craft recorded for William Wegg in Norwich during the first half of the nineteenth century.
Children of William Wegg and Mary Ann Clark
The children attributed to William and Mary Ann (Clarke) Wegg are identified through birth information derived from parish registers and later civil records, supported by baptismal entries, census returns, and burial records from Norwich and surrounding parishes. Taken together, these sources establish a coherent sibling group born in Norwich between 1819 and 1836.
The known children of William Wegg and Mary Ann Clarke, listed in order of birth, from Norwich parish registers and civil registrations, are:
Mary Ann Wegg (1819–1892), born in Norwich; later married Robert Allen; died in Norwich
Sarah Ann Wegg (1822–1884), born in Norwich; later married Charles Gerald Hagon; died in London
William Wegg (1824–1825), born in Norwich; died in infancy [7]
William Webb Wegg (1826–1905), born in Norwich; died in North Sydney
Elizabeth Wegg (1827–1912), born in Norwich; later married Philip Holman; died in Norwich
Susanna Wegg (1830–1911), born in Norwich; later married Frederick Hagon; died in London
Adelaide Wegg (1833–1886), born in Norwich; later married Robert Fletcher; died in Norwich
Christopher Henry Wegg (1836– ), born in Norwich; last traced in England in the 1901 census
With the exception of William Webb Wegg, all members of this sibling group can be shown to have remained in England throughout their lives. No evidence has been identified to suggest that any of William’s siblings emigrated to Australia. Christopher Henry Wegg, the youngest of the family, is last traced in Norwich in the 1901 census; given his age at that time, it is likely that he also died there, although no definitive death registration has yet been identified.
Several features of this sibling group are noteworthy. The births are closely spaced, all occur within Norwich, and cease prior to William Wegg’s death in 1838. The repeated appearance of the family in later records, together with intermarriage between siblings and the Hagon family, supports the identification of this group as a single, stable family unit rather than a collection of unrelated individuals sharing a surname.
Christopher Henry Wegg presents a particular challenge for later-life reconstruction. He appears in the 1901 census, which is the last confirmed record identified to date. [8] His wife is last traced in the 1891 census, and no definitive death registrations have yet been located for either of them. [9] Given the frequency of the name Christopher Henry in both English and Australian records — and its later recurrence within the Australian Wegg/Wagg family — caution is required to avoid conflating similarly named individuals.
Within this family, William Webb Wegg is the fourth of eight children and the third of the seven who survived childhood. His later life in Australia can therefore be examined against a securely reconstructed Norwich family background, in circumstances where none of his immediate family accompanied him or followed him to Australia.
Having reconstructed the Wegg family using documentary evidence, the next step is to assess whether DNA evidence from William Webb Wegg’s descendants aligns with this Norwich family structure. That analysis is undertaken in the following post.
William Webb Wagg investigation series
← Previous post: William Wagg the Convict - What the Tasmanian records tell us
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[1] 1841 England Census, St Paul parish, enumeration district 17, folio 20, page 33, line 18; Class HO107, piece 790, book 5. Digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 25 January 2026); citing The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England; GSU roll 438870.
[2] England, Select Marriages, 1538–1973. Database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 January 2026); citing marriage registers of the Church of England and other denominations, England; Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Provo, Utah, 2014.
[3] Source: St Paul’s, Norwich (a lost church and tower), Round Tower Churches Society, showing historic images and background history of the church prior to its destruction (https://www.roundtowers.org.uk/norwich-st-pauls-a-lost-church-and-tower/)
[4] Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600–1935. Database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 25 January 2026); citing Norfolk Record Office, Norwich, Norfolk, England, Church of England registers, reference BT ANW 1843_n-p; Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Lehi, Utah, 2018.
[5] Baptism of Christopher Wegg, 20 Mar 1836, St Paul, Norwich; England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538–1975, Ancestry.com; FHL film 1470903.
[6] England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1837–1915. Database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed [25 January 2026); citing General Register Office, England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes (London: General Register Office); FreeBMD transcription; Ancestry.com Operations Inc., Provo, Utah, 2006.
[7] England, Select Deaths and Burials, 1538–1991. Database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 25 January 2026); citing England Deaths and Burials, 1538–1991 (Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013); Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Provo, Utah, 2014.
[8] 1901 England Census, Class RG13, piece 1838, folio 87, page 14.Digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 25 January 2026); citing The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England; Ancestry.com Operations Inc., Provo, Utah, 2005.
[9] 1891 England Census, Class RG12, piece 1519, folio 158, page 7.Digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 25 January 2026); citing The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England; GSU roll 6096629; Ancestry.com Operations Inc., Provo, Utah, 2005.
