The Children of Herbert Sowerby and Ann Fanny Wombwell

Offices of the North China Daily News in
Shanghai to whom Herbert Sowerby imprudently
sent his views on the the Shanghai Bishopric.
The newspaper was closed by the Chinese
Communist Party in 1951.

It should not be overlooked that whilst supporting Herbert Sowerby in his missionary endeavours and quarrels, and playing her own part in evangelizing Chinese females (who were for the most part strictly off-limits to male missionaries), Ann Fanny Wombwell gave birth to six children during the couple’s time in China. It was not a small family that left Shanghai in 1894, and given their connections with the American Protestant Episcopal Mission, it is also a possibility that they simply sailed straight to America.

Either way, their children were:

i. Dr. James Herbert Sowerby (1882-1948, born in Wuhan, China, died Bedford County, Virginia). He married Ellla Maria Schmidt (1892-1967).
ii. Grace Ai-ling (or Arling) Sowerby (1883-1975, born in Wuhan, China, died Hyattsville, Prince Georges, Maryland). She married Harold Curtiss Abbott (1886-1971). They had two children: Helen Abbott, and Ruth Ai-Ling Abbott. Of these two children, Ruth married Stephen Joseph O’Donald. They had five children.
iii. Eleanor Margaret Sowerby (1885-1965, born in Wuhan, China, died Bedford County, Virginia). She married Wyatt Lockett Watson. They had three children.
iv. George Seguier Sowerby (1887-1946, born in Wuhan, China, died Virginia). He married Rachel I. Roberson.
v. Frederick Henry Sowerby (1890-1965, born in Wuhan, China, died Bedford County, Virginia). He married Nellie Brett.
vi. Alice Amelia Sowerby (1893-1969, born in Wuhan, China, died Greensboro, Guilford, North Carolina). She married Carl Argle Barkley (1894-1967). They had two children.

These were the grandchildren of George Wombwell junior, and fourth cousins x1 removed of Hetty Jane Owen. Their children of whom there are many, and grandchildren, plenty of whom are also recorded, grew up as American citizens, fifth cousins of Hetty Jane and sixth cousins respectively of Harold and Olwen Eldridge.