Family background
William Green Hibble was born in London in 1836 to Charles and Eliza Hibble. He migrated to New Zealand on the ‘Lord Hardinge’ in 1857, and married Rhoda Mary Ann Clark in 1858. They had at least five children in New Zealand: William Edward (1860), Elizabeth Langord (1862), Louisa Jane (1865), James Clarker (1865), and Harry Alfred (1871). Moving to Sydney in the 1870s, they lived at King Street, Newtown, where Rhoda Mary Ann died in July 1881, aged 41.
In May 1889, Hibble was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and hard labour in Darlinghurst Gaol after being found guilty as an accessory to bigamy after marrying Harriet Corsten, whose husband was still alive, in 1886. After his release from prison, Hibble married Anna Luckmann at Redfern in 1890. Hibble died on 7 February 1909 at his residence, 1 Parramatta Road, Annandale, and was buried in the Church of England section at Rookwood.
Occupation & interests
William Green Hibble was noted as a sign maker, painter, decorator and glazier. He had a business at 127 King Street in 1880, at 43 Watkins Street, Newtown in 1882 and at Temple Court in the city in 1886. In 1879 he was chosen to head one of three teams to supplement the Department of Public Works painters working on the Garden Palace Exhibition Building. He painted and decorated three of the courts on the ground floor: New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Hibble was also employed to repaint the Newtown Town Hall in 1881. In 1888, he was declared insolvent. He was later in business as Hibble & Sons, 121 Parramatta Road, Annandale, but was declared bankrupt again in 1905.
Community activity
Hibble was a Justice of the Peace (JP). In March 1875 he joined the Masonic Lodge of Newtown Kilwinning, which met in the Town Hall, but was among those suspended in August 1878 because they believed the Lodge should affiliate with the new Australian Lodge rather than remain with the Scottish original.
Local government service
William Green Hibble was an alderman on Newtown Council in 1882-84, representing O’Connell Ward.
References
Biographical information for this alderman was originally researched by Mark Matheson for the Newtown Project Website. Additional research was carried out by Dr Martina Muller in November 2022.
‘Family Notices’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 July 1881, p. 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13490183
‘Advertising’, Evening News, 4 February 1885, p. 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111174976 ‘Advertising’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 March 1888, p. 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13664536
‘Alleged Bigamy Case’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March 1889, p. 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13716713
‘The charge of bigamy against a magistrate’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March 1889, p. 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28340183
‘Peculiar Charge of Bigamy’, Evening News, 3 April 1889, p. 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108901093
‘That Bigamy Case’, Evening News, 2 May 1889, p. 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108891977
‘Family Notices’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February 1909, p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15034532