by John Slaughter  

Welcome to new member Diana Thomas. I briefly mentioned in the last journal Diana’s connection. Since then Diana has sent me a family tree and a photograph of Eliza Saul who was born in Dublin in 1861 and who married Edward Crowe, a sergeant in the 20^th Hussars, in Dublin on 17 August 1883. The family chart reveals that Eliza had three siblings Edward, Theresa and Ann and that her father was William. Hopefully Diana will be carrying on her research as we have only a very patchy picture of the Irish Sauls.

I have also been pleased to welcome back Clive Saul who has extensive records and charts on the Cumberland Sauls. A significant number of the Cumberland Sauls were of the Quaker tradition and whilst Quaker records are generally superior in detail to parish records it still leaves a good number of assumed connections to be made. A comparison of Clive’s charts and those that I prepared some years ago show some discrepancies. I am hoping that Clive and Norman Saul will be able to “review the evidence”.

I have written a number of articles about two brothers, James and William, who emigrated to Australia in the mid 19^th century and founded the Macleay Sauls. They originated from Cawston in Norfolk and were two of thirteen children born to William Saul and Mary Anne Lowe. We now seem to have identified what became of one of the other brothers. Samuel Saul was baptised at Cawston on 6 January 1840 and though he appears on the family household in the 1851 census he had left the village by 1861. We have now located him in 1861 at 6 Providence Place, Scott Street, East Sculcoates, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He had married Alice Booth by this time and had an infant son William. We know of two further children born to the couple. Samuel had a variety of occupations including Oil Miller, Fireman, Publican and Hotel Proprietor. His first wife died in 1888 and he remarried in 1891. He died on 7 March 1923 and his obituary in the Hull Daily Mail states that he was the licensee of the North Bridge Hotel.

Tony Storey forwarded on to me information that he found when visiting the SOG fair in May. In a book about circus folk he found details about a Teddy Saul, circus clown. We was with the Harry Boswell Circus, Oxford 1893, Tudor’s New Circus, Cambridge 1894 and Croydon 1895, and Philip Wirth’s Circus, Southport in 1898. He died in November 1952, aged 81 years. We can identify Teddy Saul as Edward Jackson Saul who was born in Oldham in 1872 the son of Simondson Saul and Eliza Mellon. Simondson originated from Kendal in Westmoreland.

Tony also found a book “United Methodist Ministers and their Circuits 1797 – 1932 by O. Beckerlegge. This contained details of two Methodist ministers Joseph Mills Saul and his son Thomas Booth Saul. From this and other resources we can put together a potted history. Joseph Mills Saul was born in Hull, Yorkshire in about 1812. We have not yet identified his parentage but we know that there were Sauls in Hull at that time. He married Hannah Booth in Tong, Yorkshire (near Bradford) on 3 November 1833. Thomas Booth Saul was baptised at Bradford on 31 August 1834. Both the marriage and baptism appear to have taken place in parish churches and this coupled with the first entry for Joseph in the Methodist book is for him taking up the Methodist Ministry at Liverpool in 1840 suggests that he was converted to Methodism in the second half of the 1830s. His ministries are shown at Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Rochdale, Burslem, Darlington, Preston and finally Devonport & Plymouth. He died at Plymouth on 21 April 1861. On the 1851 census he was at 24 West Street, Wardleworth, Lancashire. His wife was shown as Ann Marie Saul and further research suggests that Hannah died in 1849 and Joseph remarried in 1850. There were two daughters in the household in 1851, but no sign of Thomas B.

Thomas Booth Saul is first shown as taking up the Ministry at Darlington in 1857. He too made frequent moves and included ministering at places that his father had previously. His last appointment was at Brixton, London where he stayed until his death in December 1926. He was located on the 1881 census at 73 Hall Street, Burslem as head of the household that included his wife Sophia and daughters Alice, aged 18, born Sunderland, and Annie, aged 14, born Leeds. This all ties in with the places and dates at which he ministered.

We continue to seek further information about Teddy the Clown and the Methodist Ministers

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