People on board

WEBB, Lydia Maria

Lydia Maria Webb was born on the 29th of September 1842 at her father’s residence, Greenmount, Harold’s Cross, Dublin. Her parents, James Henry Webb and Anne White, were active members of the Quaker community. James’s eldest brother, Richard Davis Webb, was a Publisher and Abolitionist and one of the founding members of the Hibernian Antislavery Association. James was a Draper who built up a large business in the Cornmarket (now Thomas St) area of Dublin. James and Anne had three daughters, Mary Elizabeth who died at the age of thirteen, Lydia and Helen.

James Webb died in 1868 when the family were living in Foxrock, Co Dublin but it wasn’t until February 1881 that his widow and two daughters moved to London. They were in Islington in the 1881 census, when Helen was given as a Student of Medicine. Anne Webb died the following year and in 1891 the two sisters were in Marylebone, Helen a Registered Medical Physician. By 1911 they had moved to Spout Farm, Rotherham, Sussex, Lydia all the time declaring herself as ‘Living on Own Means’.

Lydia’s obituary in 1918 showed that she was active all her life; a Poor Law Guardian in Marylebone with a particular interest in the schools, she also worked with the inmates of the Workhouse and was an “ardent supporter of the Women’s Suffrage Movement”.

She was presumably returning from visiting family in Ireland when she travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October 1918. She did not survive the sinking but her body was recovered and was identified by Leonard Webb, a cousin who gave his address as Suffolk St in Dublin. Lydia was buried in the Friends Burial Ground, Blackrock, Co Dublin.