Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes was a British army officer who emigrated to Australia in 1834 upon his appointment as Collector of Customs for the Colony of New South Wales. My research into Gibbes’s life was featured in Traces, December 2020, including my discovery that his mother was the English actress known simply as ‘Mrs Gibbs’. This discovery opened a Pandora’s box of information about the colonel; however, there were still many unanswered questions about Gibbes, including the allegation that he was a bigamist. This was bluntly stated as fact in 2007 by British genealogist Anthony J. Camp in Royal Mistresses and Bastards, and the justification is clear to see.
John Gibbes married Elizabeth Davis in London on 25 May 1814 at St Andrew, Holborn, and together they had eight children. Then, on 22 May 1818, someone named John George Nathaniel Gibbes married Mary Ann Bell in Quebec, Canada. They are assumed to be the same person, although there is nothing to
