In 1737 a WILLIAM HEBDEN was born on the edges of the Yorkshire Dales, the son of ROBERT HEBDEN & Mary Fallice.
Mary came from the Bolton Abbey area and Robert Hebden probaby came from nearby Appletreewick. Their son William was baptised in Burnsall church, in the heart of Hebden country. In 1763, around the age of 30, William married a widow called Grace Hammond and they had two known children, GRACE b 1770 and WILLIAM baptised 1774.
Whether William was born in London or whether he went down south in later years is not known but in 1779 (at age 15!?) he married a young lady with Yorkshire origins who went by the name of Sarah Wrathall.
Sarah was baptised in Westminster, London, the daughter of Richard Wrathall and, she and William were married in Soho, London.
It is of course possible that both Sarah and William were both baptised during childhood rather than infancy, as they would have been a married at a very young age, even for those times.

William and Sarah had and enduring marriage, producing 8 children between 1800 & 1815. ANN(b1800) & SARAH(b1803)were both born and baptised in Pentonville, London, followed in 1805, in Aldersgate, London, by WILLIAM.
Then cameELIZABETH (1807, GEORGE(b1809, ROBERT WILLIAM(b1811), RICHARD WRATHALL(1813) & GRACE (1815).

Of those children, nothing much is known as yet, except for the sons;William, George and Robert. Williams wife is unknown but presumably he was married in the London area as were his sons ROBERT & GEORGE (B1829). George went to Australia and died there in 1876 while Robert William died in 1897 in Hobart. Certainly none of them seem to appear in the 1861 census so perhaps the family moved en masse to Australia?

George emigrated in 1839 at the age of 30 and married there, to a HARRIET SPENCER. By trade he was an ornament painter ( whatever that was) but also became part owner and manager of Brookong, which was a sheep station in New South Wales.

George and Harriet had six children, the name of one giving hints to their Yorkshire origins.
WILLIAM WRATHALL HEBDEN was the third child and born in 1852 in Sydney but died at the age of 30 in Geelong. His middle name of Wrathall is a name that belongs very much to the Linton- Skipton area and is the surname of his grandmother Sarah. Wrathall was also the surname of my Hebden grandfather’s maternal line so there is likely some link between this group of Hebden’s and mine.

George & Harriet’s other children were -
GEORGE (1850-1924)who married MARTHA CARSON WILSON in 1881. George was a breeder of Suffolk Horses and Romney Marsh Sheep
CHARLES SPENCER BRANSBY HEBDEN (1851 to 1915), MARY GRACE ( d. 1908), MATILDA JANE & ELIZABETH SPENCER HEBDEN.
Mary Grace married WILLIAM OFFICER and had nine little Officers. She died in 1908. Matilda married WILLIAM RALEIGH and one of their four children, Adeline, married the Chief Justice for Victoria Australia..

ROBERT WILLIAM, second son of William and Sarah, was born in 1811 in Skipton, and died June 13, 1897 in Hobart Tasmania. His wife was a MARY GARLAND and it seems that they married before they emigrated.
Robert went to Sydney in about 1868 with his wife and 6 children. No records of his arrival have been found. During his early life he seems to have successfully followed a career in printing and engraving in London and was engraver to the Exchequer. His decision to emigrate was probably also influenced by the reverses in his business, the death of his youngest son in the American Civil War and the success of his elder brother in Australia.
Their 8 children were ROBERT YOE HEBDEN ( 1837 to 1895) & SYDNEY WRATHALL HEBDEN ( 1841 to 1863) and who died in the American Civil War. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery and apparently fought on the side of the Unionists in the US Cavalry.

Then came PERCIVAL b. 1848, Yorkshire; d. February 2, 1901, Callan Park Mental Hospital, Australia. He married AMELIA JANE BRIGGS on April 29, 1875 in St Barnabas Church, Sydney and he was a carpenter & joiner by trade.
They had seven children, five of them girls. EMMA MARY born 1879, married PERCY BUTLER & AMELIA b. 1882 married FREDERICK SANDERSON.
ETHEL GEORGINA was born 1881, MATILDA, later a secretary, was born in 1891 and EDITH SULLIVAN HEBDEN was an adopted child. She later married JAMES CANNEL.
SYDNEY PERSEY, a carpenter, was born 1877 in Redfern Australia and died in 1949.
He married ESSIE ELIZABETH BUCKLEY in 1903 in St Barnabas Church, Sydney. They had eight children, seven of which were girls. Their only son was named after his father and was born in 1906.
GEORGE GARLAND HEBDEN born 1876 was a plumber. He eventually died in his 90s in Stockton Mental Hospital Australia.

Robert William and Mary Garland’s other children were SARAH MATILDA who died aged 27, ELEANOR who married a man called HOLLINSDALE and KATHERINE whose married surname was PORTEUS. Katherine has descendants living in both Honolulu and the USA.
The final two children were also daughters, MARY CIRCUIT HEBDEN &MARTHA EMMA who died in 1945.

The eldest of the children, ROBERT YOE HEBDEN (1837 to 1895) married JANE MEABY in England before they emigrated. They had seven children - ROBERT born. 1860 in England eventually died, it is thought, in New Zealand
. ANNE was born at sea in 1862 and arrived in Australia aged 3 months. Her sister DORIS died young. Then came JANE, followed by PERCIVAL, ALICE & WILLIAM, all born in Australia.

Six generations down from William Hebden and Sarah Wrathall of Yorkshire, there are still little clutches of Hebdens in Australia whose roots lie in Upper Wharfedale, Yorkshire.