George Toogood Smith (1903 – 5th June 1955) was the uncle, through marriage, of John Lennon. George operated his family’s dairy farms and a retail outlet in the village of Woolton. The farms had been in the Smith family for four generations, but after the start of World War II, they were taken over by the British Government for war work. The original dairy cottage is still standing at 120a Allerton Road, Woolton, a short walk from St Peters Church.

Smith started courting Mary Elizabeth “Mimi” Stanley in the spring of 1932, and on the 15th September 1939 they married. They bought a semi-detached house at 251 Menlove Avenue, Liverpool (called Mendips).

John lived with Uncle George and Auntie Mimi for the majority of his childhood, and by all accounts George was a big influence on John – he taught him to read, read him nursery rhymes at night, and also taught him to draw and paint, and bought him his first mouth organ.

Sadly George Smith collapsed and died on a Sunday at his home of a liver haemorrhage, aged 52, and is buried in St Peter’s Church graveyard, Woolton, on the left side of the cemetery at the rear of the church