Although Webbe is included in Percy Bate's early study of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, The English Pre-Raphaelite Painters (four editions 1899-1910), he remains a shadowy figure. Even the spelling of his name is equivocal, 'Webb' and 'Webbe' both appearing in lifetime exhibition catalogues. He is said to have received his artistic training in Düsseldorf, an experience which must have laid him open to the influence of the Nazarenes. Peter Cornelius (1783-1867), one of the leaders of the movement, had been director of the Düsseldorf Academy in the early 1820s, and his associate Wilhelm Schadow (1789-1862), who had succeeded him in 1826, was still the incumbent when Webbe was a student. Webbe was back in England by 1853, when he made his debut at the Royal Academy, and he continued to show there until 1878. During this period he also supported the British Institution and the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, while his patron C. Lucas showed two of his pictures at the International Exhibition at South Kensington in 1862.
Not surprisingly for an artist trained in the Nazarene tradition, Webbe was an early convert to Pre-Raphaelitism. The ideas of the Brotherhood, which was launched in 1848, gained ground rapidly in the 1850s, and Webbe absorbed many of their philosophies. The Pre-Raphaelite painter to whom Webbe was perhaps most indebted was William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) with his tightly detailed works.