But at some time John had followed his father and been a cricket ball maker – in his case with Messrs. Ten years later Eliza had moved away from Oak Cottage but the two youngest children remained with George, still a cricket ball maker, and John “unemployed”. They had had eight children, of whom seven survived (see 1911 census), although by the time they got to Oak Cottage only four were still living with their parents – Eliza, who is described in the 1881 census as aged 19 and “sometime servant, unemployed” Joseph aged 11 and John aged 9, both presumably at the Village School for boys and baby Fanny, aged 3. When George moved to Oak Cottage, he was in his mid-forties and his wife, Mary, was slightly older. His parents were George and Mary Simmons. John Simmons (aka Jack) was born in about 1872. But were they? And if they were, wouldn’t she be Mrs Helen Simmons? It was claimed that Jack had been on his way to America with Mrs Helen Twomey from Tonbridge – that they had been on their honeymoon. Jack had lived at Oak Cottage and had drowned on the Titanic. In “We Had Everything …” by Chris Rowley, p 253, there is mention of Jack Simmons who died on the Titanic from those who remembered the family.
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