George Hunn Nobbs (16 October 1799 – 5 November 1884) baptised George Hunn was an English missionary on Pitcairn Island and later Norfolk Island, where many of his descendants still live today.
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Early life in England
Nobbs wrote in a letter dated August 1852 that he was the illegitimate son of an aristocratic father and mother. In reality, he was the illegitimate son of Jemima Hunn of Runham, Norfolk, England and James Smith of Filby, Norfolk, England, both from working-class families. Hunn, as a young pregnant woman, made a claim on Smith in bastardy. This was Smith's second bastardy claim of 1799 and he agreed to pay £30 to settle both. The Guardians' minute books for Norfolk's East and West Flegg for 24 September 1799 record:
The present Committee attending agreed last Tuesday with James Smith of Filby for £30 in full for a Composition of Bastardy in the Birth education and maintenance of the child or children of which Jemima Hunn is now pregnant with and has charged him the said James Smith before William Taylor Esqr, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the said County [Norfolk] to be the Father of the child or children which she now goes with and also for a child which Mary Hemblington of Filby has sworn herself to be with child by him the said James Smith and which said £30 is in full of all demands on him or hereafter to be made on account of his being considered the father of the said bastard child or children of which the said Jemima Hunn now goes with and also for the child of the said Mary Hemblington of which she was delivered on the [no date] day of September instant.