Obituaries Australia

Mr. Winston Churchill Simmons died on Thursday at his ancestral home, Churchill, Richmond. The late Lieutenant James Simmons, his father, arrived in Tasmania (then called Van Diemen's Land) in the ship Elizabeth on July 12, 1823. He was closely connected with a great military family, the descendant of a long line of ancestors, many of whom had served the Crown of England, and won distinction on the battlefields of Europe. Mr. Winston C. Simmons, the second son of Lieutenant Simmons, was born at Hobart on November 27, 1827[1], and was educated there, and, with the exception of a few brief periods of absence, passed his whole life in his native land. In 1843, after completing his education, Mr. Simmons joined H.M.S. Fly, which vessel shortly afterwards left Hobart to carry out survey work on the coasts of New Guinea and Australia. At the expiration of some 12 months Mr. Simmons returned to Tasmania, and soon afterwards settled down to pastoral and agricultural pursuits on the Churchill estate, which was then, and had for some time previously been, the property of his father. After the death of Lieutenant Simmons, which occurred in 1847, Mr. Winston Simmons took over the entire management of Churchill, which has ever since been his home, and during this period, stretching over three-quarters of a century, he has been closely and intimately connected with every movement having for its object the progress and benefit of the district in which his life was spent. Mr. Simmons never entered Parliament, but rendered yeoman service to the municipality of Richmond.