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- James was born in 1850 and baptised on 10 November that year. The 1871 Census records him living in London at a boarding house run by Jane Bird in the parish of St Andrew by the Wardrobe, very close to St Paul's Cathedral. His occupation was given as draper. In both the 1881 and 1891 Censuses he is described as a draper's assistant, and living at premises belonging to Meeking & Co at 7 Holborn Circus with about 90 other men aged between about 15 and 50, most of them between 20 and 30.
In 1895 (3Q1895 London City 1c/5) he married Ellen Tee, a widow, and the 1901 Census shows James and Ellen Webber and James' step-son Frederick W Tee aged 19, occupation bank clerk, living in Edmonton, North London. I am unsure precisely when James set up in business in his own right, but by 1902 he is recorded in Kelly's Directory as a draper at 208 Fore Street, Edmonton (which is the modern-day A1010, close to the North Circular).
Ellen's first husband Frederick had also been a draper, and the 1902 Kelly's Directory also records the business of 'Frederick Tee (Executors of)' nearby at 755 High Road, Tottenham. James may well have known Ellen as the wife of a fellow North London draper, but he had known her much longer than that, because she was his first cousin, twice over.
This can be shown by the following sequence of events. In 1881 (2Q1881 Edmonton 3a/292) Frederick Tee married Ellen Greenslade, born in Charles, Devon in c.1853. She was evidently the daughter of John and Mary Greenslade, respectively the brother of James' mother and the sister of his father. In 1861, as reported earlier, following the death of her father, Ellen, along with her brother Richard and her sister Leah had gone to stay at Rowley, Romansleigh, with another uncle and aunt, Richard and Elizabeth Greenslade.
I have seen no evidence that Ellen had other children from her first marriage. The 1891 Census shows her living in Edmonton with her son Frederick and Eliza Tee, aged 82, who was presumably her mother-in-law.
Kelly's London Directory for 1914 records James still living in the same place, but gives the business name as Tee & Webber, at 206&208 Fore Street. By that time James was aged 63, and I am inclined to believe that day-to-day responsibility for the business had passed to his step-son, Frederick Tee. I have found no evidence for the deaths of either James or Ellen. Kelly's Devon Directory for 1919 records a James Webber living at The Glebe, Romansleigh, but I have no reason to believe that this was 'our' James.
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1850 - Aft 1914 (> 65 years)