JOHN HERBERT’S family relationships, facts, document/photo gallery in ANCESTRY – https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/person/tree/23784401/person/1447353362/facts
JAMES AND PHOEBE’S son, JOHN HERBERT, was born on 14th August 1837 at Warmington. John was a farm labourer and marred RHODA SIMMS (born 1841) of BRAILES on 21st October 1862. They had a daughter LIZZY HERBERT born 27 May 1863 at Warmington. They moved to Birmingham and had another daughter FANNY HERBERT born 1864. They had three more children – see below.
Involved with John in libel and slander court proceedings taken against them by the Rev. FREDERICK RICHARD ANDREWS, relating to who was the father of Fanny’s child, FREDERICK RICHARD HERBERT.
FANNY HERBERT gave birth to FRED in September 1882 when she was 17 and claimed that The Rev ANDREWS was the father. He denied this through two sets of court proceedings.
In 2020 ROGER HERBERT, FANNY’s great grandson, discovered he had a DNA match with one of Rev. ANDREWS descendants…. He was the father all along! Read the full story here.
John moved with wife Rhoda and daughter Lizzy from Warmington, Warwickshire in the early 1860s to Birmingham and then on to West Bromwich. Fanny was born in Birmingham in 1864 and later children in West Bromwich. Their address in Birmingham (taken from Fanny’s birth certificate) was 19 Great Barr Street, Digbeth. John’s occupation was the “Warehouse Porter”. They moved to West Bromwich before William Herbert’s birth in around 1868.
In the 1871 Census JOHN AND RHODA lived at 10 Mill Street, West Bromwich. John was by 1891 working as a Straw Dealer, which developed into the Herbert family business of Corn and Seed Merchants (W. & F. HERBERT with premises known as Town Corn Mills in Shaftesbury Street, West Bromwich, just round the corner from Mill Street) and continued until 1970. By 1881 PHOEBE, John’s mother had moved from Warmington to live with them in West Bromwich.
By 1891 FRED (grandson) was living with them and Fanny, his mother, had moved out. Rhoda’s brother Edward Simms and her father , also Edward, also moved to Wednesbury and nearby West Bromwich.
See censuses below for more details.
| 1871 Census | at 10 Mill Street, West Bromwich | Age | |
| JOHN | Head | 33 | Labourer born Warmington |
| RHODA | Wife | 30 | Wife b. Brailes |
| LIZZIE | daughter | 8 | Scholar b. Warmington |
| FANNY | daughter | 6 | ” b. Birmingham |
| WILLIAM | son | 3 | son b. West Bromwich |
| CHARLES | SIMMS Visitor (Rhoda’s Brother) | 22 | Labourer (married) b. Brailes |
| 1881 Census | at 10 Mill Street, West Bromwich | ||
| JOHN | Head | 45 | General Labourer. b Warmington |
| WILLIAM | Son | 12 | Scholar b. West Bromwich |
| SUSAN | Daughter | 9 | “ |
| GEORGE | Son | 7 | “ |
| PHOEBE | Mother | 80 | b. Warmington |
| 1891 Census | at 10 Mill Street, West Bromwich | ||
| JOHN | Head | 54 | Straw Dealer b Warmington |
| RHODA | Wife | 50 | Dressmaker b. Brailes |
| GEORGE | Son | 17 | Gen Iron Caster b. West Bromwich |
| FREDERICK RICHARD | Grandson | 8 | Scholar b. West Bromwich |
| SUSAN | Daughter | 19 | Assistant Dressmaker b. West Bromwich |