Henry John Corbett

Henry John Corbett was born at East Maitland on 23 May 1856 to Thomas and Emilie Corbett. Emilie at the time was 39 years old and they had no other children. Thomas Corbett had been a sea captain in Britain and after arriving in Australia on the Cape Horn in 1848 with Emilie and her sister, Theresa, entered the Colonial Customs service in the Hunter River Region. Emilie and Theresa were the daughters of a French naval officer Phillipe Antoine La Barr and an English woman Sarah Pollard.

Henry and his mother returned to Australia where he entered the employment of the Bank of New South Wales now Westpac. He later rose to the position of Manager and served in various country towns, one of the first being East Maitland. There in 1883, when he was 27 years old he married Frances Emma Tyrrell, the daughter of Archdeacon Lovic Tyrell and Emma Hungerford. Frances was 22 years old. Lovic Tyrell was a brother of Edward Tyrell who founded the wine industry in the Hunter Valley.

Henry Corbett and Emma Hungerford had four children. Lovic born in at Warialda in 1884, Frances (Madge) at East Maitland in 1886, Philip who died as an infant, and Harold at Crookwell in 1890.