Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Victory Medal 1914-19 (201516 Pte. G. R. Simmonds. R. Berks. R.) very fine £40-£50

George Robert Simmonds was born in Reading around 1893 and enlisted in the 1/4th Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment Territorial Force on 22 June 1915. A former grocer’s assistant, he joined the Battalion in Italy and likely fought on the Asiago Plateau and at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto; he was discharged on 20 May 1918 in consequence of wounds.

In 1923 Simmonds married Miss Lydia Sarah Annie Sheppard at the Church of Christ in Norwood, London. Described as a devoted couple, their story was published in the Croydon Times on 14 May 1938:

‘Double suicide at Upper Norwood
When Mr. John Sheppard of Woodland-road, Upper Norwood, burst open the door of a room at a house in Woodland Hill, occupied by his son-in-law and daughter, on Thursday evening of last week, he found the couple dead on the bed in an affectionate embrace, with pieces of tubing attached to gas brackets... At an inquest, on Monday, at Camberwell, before Mr. Douglas Cowburn, it was shown that the man had suffered a severe war wound and that he had serious kidney disease and other troubles, while the wife was to go to hospital for an operation on a goitre. They were described as deeply devoted to each other and were discovered dead in each other’s arms.’

The Bradford Observer adds: ‘Since the war, in which he was very badly wounded, he had been a complete cripple and had to use crutches continually. His wounds still gave him trouble and his wife used to dress them for him. He was unable to work.’