W.H. Yabsley

Microfilm copies of the following: (a) Diary of William Yabsley Sr. (4 vol.), 1871-1872, 1875, 1877 (b) Diary of William Yabsley Jr. (21 vol.), 1902-1922. Entries in the 1902-1922 diary are very brief a day per line, and a month per page. The diary ends on 29 May 1922, after the writer (then aged 79) had noted every day for a week that he was ill. See also Diary of William Yabsley, 1863-1902 (as copied by his son Arthur H. Yabsley in 1948) to which the microfilm described above forms a sequel. (See A459). Born in Devonshire, England, William Yabsley Sr., (1812-1880) came to New South Wales as a ship's carpenter aboard HMS Beagle (1837-1838). He left the Beagle in Sydney and, from 1838, worked as a cedar-getter on the Clarence River. He later moved to the Richmond where he became a leading shipbuilder and timber merchant, first at Ballina later at Coraki. William Yabsley Jr. (born 10 March 1843) was the eldest of the shipbuilder's four sons. Like his father he prospered in the timber trade.