By John Slaughter
Welcome to new member Ken Saul Jnr. Ken joined the Society after being impressed with our website and said that he had traced his Saul heritage back to Westmorland in the 1600’s and specifically a Johannis (John) Saul born 1679 the son of Thomas Saul of Arnside. I could not find such a baptism in our records the closest I had was a John Saul baptised on 1 March 1667 the son of Thomas. Ken also provided information that he believed that his ancestor was the John Christian Saul, along with his wife Mary, who had sailed from the port of London in December 1774 bound for Virginia. It would appear that Ken is following someone else’s research rather than having undertaken research himself. Richard Saul and I are continuing to correspond with Ken to see if we can verify the information further.
I have been looking at some records of child migrants sent to Canada. It is estimated that in total about 100,000 child migrants were sent to Canada between 1869 and the late 1930’s so it is not surprising to find a numbers of Sauls amongst these records. One such was a James William Saul who was sent by Barnardo’s in Kendal, Westmorland in 1908. James was 12 years old at that time and I can identify him as the son of Francis Wilson Saul and Mary Jane Knowles.
We have come across Francis Wilson Saul before as he was one of the criminals that I wrote about in my Saul Criminals article published in our April 2016 journal. One of the several times that he had appeared in court was September 1906 for neglecting to maintain his child and he received a prison sentence of one month for this offence. Francis Wilson Saul and Mary Jane Knowles had married in 1895 and had three children of which James William was the oldest. The other children were Francis Wilson (1899-1902) and Frederick Wilson (1903-1911). On the 1901 census the mother Mary Jane was in the workhouse along with her children James William (5) and Frank (1). I don’t know where the father was in 1901 but at the time of the 1911 census Francis Wilson Saul was resident in Kendal together with his wife and son Frederick Wilson (James William had been sent to Canada by then). James William’s parents did not die until the 1920’s so it was not the case that James William was an orphan. Whether James William had a better life in Canada than he would have had back in the UK is unknown, some child migrants undoubtedly did but we do know that others were exploited and abused.
I also found information about a Arthur George Saul who emigrated in 1923 and whose date of birth was given as 8 February 1912. I could not find this Arthur George in the GRO birth indexes but a search on Ancestry located a family tree from which it appears that he had been born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was one of many children that sailed from the port of Liverpool on 27 July 1923 on the SS Megantic of the White Star line bound for Quebec and Montreal. All of the children were shown as being sent from the Liverpool Sheltering Home, Myrtle Street, Liverpool. The Ancestry tree gives his father’s name as Peter McAlpine so I am guessing that Arthur George was illegitimate and that he took his mother’s surname. I do not have access to Scottish records to confirm this.
These child migrants are commonly called “Home Children” and it is estimated that today about 10% of Canadians are descended from a Home Child.