GEORGE SMITH AND HIS FAMILY

George's parents were Joseph and Sarah Smith. Joseph was born in Sutton on the Hill, while Sarah was born in Lincolnshire. James came to work in Etwall as a gardener, and the family lived at Number 3, Egginton Road. According to the 1901 census, Joseph and Sarah were 48 and 47 years old then, and their children were

Hilda A, aged 10,
Jane A aged 7
Joseph A aged 5
George aged 3.

In the Primary School admission register, Hilda A is registered as Daisy by her father, the pet name for his first daughter by a gardener, perhaps! Jane A is registered as Cassia, but the master has written Jane Ann above it!

Joseph and George retained their own names!

George was born on the 12th of January, 1898, and started school on the 11th of March, 1901, in the infant department.

The Primary School Admission Register records that he left school, aged thirteen and a half, on the 28th August 1911. 

Almost four years later, the headmaster has written across his school entry, "Killed in France, August, 1915, aged 17." A terribly sad ending of a young life. 

Hilda Daisy Smith married a soldier, John Rushby, and their daughter, Lilian Annie Rushby, was baptised at St.Helen's on the 13th February 1916.

Less than a year later, John Rushby was killed in action in Flanders, and is buried in Warlencourt British Cemetery.

Another tragedy for the Smith family as they had lost their young son, George, in 1915, and now their son in law, John Rushby, in 1917, leaving their daughter, Daisy, a war widow with a baby daughter.

Mrs Hilda Daisy Rushby, a war widow for over a quarter of a century, married William Oakton in 1943 in St Helen's Church, Etwall. Members of the Oakton family in Etwall remember her as "Aunty Daisy". Ella Kemps, who was herself an Oakton, called her Granny Daisy.