By John Slaughter
This article was published in the August 2021 edition of Soul Search, the Journal of The Sole Society
This is the fourth and final instalment in the series of articles detailing interesting events that occurred in the lives of our Saul ancestors in 1881, as reported in the newspapers.
Charles Saul of Waterloo Street, Leamington Spa and Edward Smallman of Glebe Place both pleaded guilty on 30th October 1881 to having played pitch and toss on the Canal-Side. PC Hopkins said that he was on duty and watched the defendants play at pitch and toss for over 20 minutes. He had been sent there, in plain clothes, by the Chief Constable following complaints. The employers of both defendants had given good character references and the case was dismissed on payment of 4s 6d expenses.
Pitch and Toss is a game in which players toss coins at a mark, the person whose coin hits closest to the mark, then tosses all the coins in the air and wins all those that come down heads up.
Charles Saul is on the 1881 census at 35 Waterloo Street, Leamington Spa, aged 16 years in the household of his parents Henry Saul and Jane (nee Flavel). Charles was the seventh born of 12 children. Charles enlisted in the Royal Warwick Regiment on 6th July 1885 aged 20 years and saw service in India and Ceylon. He was promoted to the rank of Corporal in 1892 and was discharged in 1897. His army records show that he had married Mary de Hoedt in Kandy, Ceylon in 1894. Charles does not appear on any later censuses so he may have remained overseas following his discharge from the army.
A report in the Carlisle Journal on 9th December 1881 stated that:
The Reverend W Saul, who had laboured in the Carlisle station of the Primitive Methodist Connexion several years beyond the usual term, has accepted an invitation in Newcastle and will reside at Blaydon-on-Tyne, it being intended to form Blaydon with several places now connected to Shotley Bridge and Stanley stations into an independent station, in harmony with a plan proposed by Mr Saul when in charge of the Shotley station.
Checking who this was on the 1881 census I found he was William Saul residing at 45 London Road, Botchergate, Cumberland, aged 53 years, a Primitive Methodist Minister of Cecil Street Chapel, and born Doncaster, Yorkshire.
Cecil Street Chapel, Doncaster, Yorkshire where William Saul was minister. Reproduced, with permission, from the Hodgson Field Collection at Englesea Brook Museum of Primitive Methodism: online at www.myprimitivemethodists.org.uk
William’s wife was named Margaret and there were two resident daughters Anne Elizabeth (26) and Eva Elizabeth (20). Researching further I found a website for the Primitive Methodists and this contained a wealth of information about past Ministers including considerable genealogical information on William. He had been born on 1st October 1827 at Norton, near Doncaster to parents Michael and Margaret Saul. I was then able to find William on one of our Yorkshire charts. The biography stated that William had married three times. Firstly to Mary Wadsworth in late 1853 and to whom a daughter Ann Elizabeth had been born in 1854. Sadly Mary died in 1855. William remarried in 1857 to Esther Thornborrow and they had four children (the biography incorrectly states three). Esther died in 1864 and William married for the third time in 1869 to Margaret Brandth (clearly the Margaret on the 1881 census but not the mother of the two daughters). William died on 28th March 1889 at his home in St Mary’s Road, Doncaster. The biography also gave information of what became of the children so all in all a lot of information here that I did not previously have.
The list of circuits in which William served is quite numerous so he had a very roving lifestyle. He spent a few years in the Channel Islands and it was there that two of his children were born. The biography was a very useful find and all stemmed from a small newspaper article.
William’s parents were Michael Saul and Margaret (nee Murgatroyde) and William was the second born of eleven known children. Michael was the son of James Saul and Anne Cawood and they are the earliest generation that we know of. They were Catholic but the earlier Catholic registers didn’t record parents names, just the names of the godparents. We have recorded six children of James and Anne but as one child was named “Joannes Septimus” (John Seventh) we must be missing one.