William [Matthew?] Simson
(1849–1928)
Credit: Paul Manning
William Simson was born at Ardleigh in January 1849, the second son of Edward and Sarah Simson.
Like his father and his two brothers, William was a veterinary surgeon and farmer at Ardleigh.
When the 1871 census was taken the twenty-two-year-old William was visiting his elder brother Edward (E.J. Simson) at Holbrook, Suffolk.
On 23 April 1879 he married Mary Ann Hazell, at St James, Clerkenwell, London.
Although Mary Ann was also from Ardleigh (the daughter of a neighbouring farmer), her address when they married was Exmouth Street, Clerkenwell. This was where William’s sisters, Polly (my great grandmother) and Liz, were in the 1870s, following the death of their father. The parish church of St James is where Polly was also married the previous summer. So presumably Mary Ann was lodging there too, possibly with the Stokes family, the bakers, where Liz lived in 1871. Kate Simson was a witness at the wedding: this was probably Catherine/Kitty, William’s eldest sister, living in Walworth in 1871.
William and Mary Ann didn’t remain in London after they married. They were back in rural Essex, at Park Lane, Langham, from the 1880s, apparently at Pond Farm, where William farmed forty-two acres and was also a veterinary surgeon. Their children, all born at Langham, were:
Matthew William Simson
Matthew William (Matt) Simson (1884–1948) was a farmer, starting out as a worker on his father’s farm at Langham. He died in 1948 and was probably unmarried (certainly he was in 1939).
Catherine Sarah Simson
Catherine Sarah Simson (known as Kitty) was born in 1886 and married a George Morley in 1910. Their children were Catherine Morley (1911–99), Georgina S[imson?] Morley (born 1913), William G. C. Morley (1914–38) and Joan S[imson?] Morley (1921).
Charles Edward Simson
Charles Edward Simson (1890–1971) married Jaine Nanjulian May, at Walthamstow in 1921 (Nanjulian seems to have been a Cornish name). In 1939 they were living at Lamparts Farm, near Colchester and Charles Edward was a farmer. I am not sure if they had any children.