William Mann Simmons was born on 29th August 1842 in Great Ellingham. He joined the Eastern Counties Railway at the age of fifteen. He Married Sophia Jemima Rushmore in St Margaret’s church, Lowestoft on 7th April 1863.
In 1871 he was the station master at Eccles Road for the Great Eastern Railway, and by 1874 he had been promoted to the position of station master for Brandon. The 1881 census shows him living in the station house with his wife Sofia (née Rushmore) and six of their children. William died on 8th November 1899 and his funeral took place in Weeting on November 11th. William’s estate was valued at £632 6s 3d.
William and Sophia had nine children:
Sophia Elizabeth (born 1863). Was working as a shop assistant on Anchor Hill, Wivenhoe, Essex in 1881
Emma Rebecca (1865 – 1890) She married Robert Henry Smith in 1885
William Robert (1867 – 1893)
Herbert Charles (born 1869). He married Ruth Burg in 1885
Elizabeth Mann (born 1871)
Kate Louisa (born 1872)
Philip James (1874 – 1911) He married Clarissa Golden James in 1894)
Hilda May (1877 – 1917)
Marmaduke Marsham (born 1882 ) He married Minnie Dyer in 1905 and then Elizabeth Dennis in 1916.
After William’s death, his surviving children moved away from Weeting. Herbert became station master at Hythe near Colchester; Philip an assistant at the Stock Exchange and Marmaduke a bank clerk in Harringay.
By 1891, Hilda May was working as a draper’s assistant in Lambeth. She married Frederick Hazlewood in Brentwood 1905. The 1911 census shows the couple living in Brixton, accompanied by her widowed mother, Sophia. Sophia died in 1914.