By John Saul
This article was published in the April 2018 edition of Soul Search, the journal of The Sole Society
I was very sad to hear of the recent passing of Peter. Peter was a great supporter of the Society and I was very pleased to meet him regularly when he, and his wife Kate, attended a good number of our Society’s Annual Gatherings.
Peter was also a regular contributor of articles to Soul Search and in total I have found 11 articles that he authored. Peter was one of the early members of the Society, joining in October 1992, so within the Society’s first year. In those days he knew little of about his Saul ancestry and had joined as part of a long term project of genealogical research, a project that he was certainly to fulfil in later years. His first journal article appeared in April 2001 when he wrote about his Sauls of Bury in Lancashire. He continued to update us over the years as his research progressed but he also developed a wider interest in the Saul surname and in August 2006 wrote an article ‘Distribution of the Saul surname and variants in England in 1851’ based on his research of that years census. Peter’s last article appeared in our August 2017 journal.
With Peter’s considerable help we have managed to record a very substantial Saul chart that currently contains over 400 individuals. It is headed by a Robert Saul and Ann Hutton of Beetham, now Cumbria, back in the 1620s/1630s.
Peter will be sadly missed and we send our condolences to Kate and family.