• John Herbert GREY

Grand-Father

Born 23 Sep 1869, Pimlico, London

Married Eliza Gertrude Kemp 10 Jun 1895 Pershore, Worcs

Buried NRC 13 Sep 1946

Occupation Baker/Confectioner (Newbury, Thatcham & London)

Certificates BMD

 

John Grey was born to his mother Hannah Maria Knight in Pimlico, London. She was born and lived in Greenham, and probably went to London to avoid embarrassment: she never married, and died at the age of 39 in 1880. It is said John was present at her death, of cancer, in St Bartholomew’s Almshouses.

John went to sea in his early teens, and married Eliza Gertrude Kemp in 1895, in Pershore, Worcestershire. He later worked as a baker on the troop ships going to South Africa, during the Second Boer War. He opened two bakeries in succession in Newbury (79 and 108 Bartholomew Street), then in Thatcham (Bath Road); after that in Euston by the station, before retiring to live in South London. He died in 1946, after an accident involving a tram.

See the NRC entry under his mother Hannah Maria Knight, for speculation about John’s father.

Sources:as above