People Australia

Robert and his brother Thomas Webb were able seaman aboard the Sirius, which landed in Sydney in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet. On 14 February Robert was sent to Norfolk Island on the Supply to help with the new settlement and worked as a gardener. He helped to foil a plot to take over the island using information received from Elizabeth Anderson, with whom he was living.

Webb returned to Port Jackson by the Supply in February 1791; he married Elizabeth Anderson at Parramatta on 11 September 1791. They settled on 60 acres of land at Rose Hill with Webb's brother Thomas; a further 20 acres were granted on 25 July 1794.

In October 1798 Webb was transferred from supernumerary to the ship's books on the Reliance.  He died on board the ship at Port Jackson on 19 February 1799. He was buried in the Old Sydney Burial Ground. His wife continued on the ship as a passenger to England.

* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), pp 374-75