George emigrated from Folkestone to New South Wales. He arrived in March 1826, and was later joined by his parents and siblings. He bought a 479 ton vessel, the Albion (previously owned by Captain Charles WELLER of Lewisham, Kent; no relation), and established a trading business between Hobart and Sydney. His brothers Joseph and Edward set up a whaling and trading station at Otago in New Zealand in 1831, and the three of them (or two, after Joseph`s death in 1835) ran a profitable, if perilous, business. They bought large tracts of New Zealand totalling over three million acres, from Maori, but when these land claims had to be approved by the Government after NZ became British in 1840, all were rejected. Large sums were spent on litigation, several of the Weller brothers` vessels were shipwrecked, and the agent who was supposed to be managing their land in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales was either incompetent or fraudulent, or both. Despite selling their Australian land, farm implements and livestock, and their ships and the establishment in Otago the two brothers were unable to save the business. It and they were declared bankrupt in April 1842 with debts of