11 Facts About Fred Whibley

Fred Whibley abandoned a career as clerk in a London bank to escape from the constraints and social expectations of respectability in the Victorian era.

Fred Whibley ended up as a copra trader on Niutao in Tuvalu in the central Pacific Ocean.

From 1873 to 1888 Fred Whibley worked as a clerk in a bank.

In 1888, aged 33, Fred Whibley left England for the United States of America.

From his letters to his brother Charles Fred Whibley he appears to have been involved in gold mining.

The Klondike Gold Rush began in 1896 although clearly Fred Whibley did not find success as in 1898 he wrote to Charles Fred Whibley asking whether his brother had repaid $15 to Gordon T Legg, who was the manager of the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia.

Fred Whibley had borrowed the money to travel from Vancouver BC, to Sydney, Australia, where his sister Eliza was living with her husband John T Arundel.

Fred Whibley had the reputation as the black sheep of what was otherwise a respectable Victorian era family.

Fred Whibley appears to be one of those Europeans who chose to live on an isolated Pacific atoll as an escape from the constraints and social expectations of respectability in the Victorian era.

In May or June 1898 Fred Whibley arrived in Niutao in Tuvalu to work as the resident island trader buying copra for the Henderson and Macfarlane, which then dominated the copra trade in Tuvalu.

Fred Whibley had a number of partners the first woman had a son to him whom latter committed suicide.