Finally coming back to this ... and found the issue :-)
DBGWebPage *NewPage = new DBGWebPage(webGUI);
The new Page was not a child of the correct object.
I checked pointers as suggested.
The connect of the JS bridge showed no issues.
However, the first call from JS (signal javaScriptWindowObjectCleared() calling my populateJavaScriptWindowObject())
crashed on
QWebFrame * webGUIframe = qobject_cast<QWebFrame *>(sender());
QWebView * webGUI = (QWebView*)(webGUIframe->parent())->parent();
obviously because it was pointing to 'nothing' instead of a QWebView.
Thank you guys for all the hints.