SAYER FAMILY HISTORY

The Sayers of East Yorkshire

John and Dorothy Sayer’s wealth is in sharp contrast to John’s youngest brother Michael whose family’s financial affairs do not appear to have proved so successful in the longer term. Twins Michael and Thomas Sayer, as previously indicated, had been brought up by stepmother Mary (nee Punton) at Kirkleavington, and whilst nothing more is known of Thomas, Michael is known to have married a widow, Rebecca Bell (nee Sunman) formerly of Holtby, East Yorkshire, by Licence, in Hutton Bonville in Autumn 1777 where they had two sons - Thomas (1778-1857) and Michael Jnr (1783). 

However, in 1786 for some reason, the family left Lovesome Hill and moved to Holtby, East Yorkshire , where records show Michael owned land, leased additional land from the Holtby Estate, and acted as juror.  Michael was therefore probably at that time still a reasonably prosperous farmer. He died in 1806, and his wife shortly afterwards.

Sadly, Michael’s oldest son, Michael Jnr (1783) appears to have fared less well. He married a Mary Ellison at Holme on Spalding Moor in 1803 and had several children but tragically much of the family, including his wife, were wiped out within a few weeks of November and December 1816 - only Michael and 2 children, John (1807) and Elizabeth (1812), survived. (It seems there was famine across much of Europe in 1816, "the year without a summer", due to the climatic effects of the eruption of Tambora in 1815, the summer of 1816 being the third coldest on record. There were also epidemics of both typhus and smallpox in England between 1816 and 1819.)

Michael, now reduced to working as an agricultural labourer, remarried in 1820 and he and wife Mary Ann (nee Ellison) settled at Market Weighton. Daughter Rebecca (1822-1890) married Henry Southwick, a carpenter, and moved to Hampshire where her brother William (1823), an agricultural labourer, can also be found lodging in the 1861 census. Nothing more is known of him.

Michael died in 1866 at the grand age of 88, of `Natural Decay’, whilst the widowed Mary Ann, a pauper, and increasingly infirm was finally admitted to the nearby workhouse one Saturday, in August 1867. The Pocklington Workhouse records indicate she was registered as No. 22.  On October 21st 1868, just over a year later, Mary Sayers died, at 1 o'clock on a Wednesday morning.

So, the only son of Michael Jnr known to have survived to adulthood and had a family, was John (1807). An agricultural labourer at Holme on Spalding Moor, he married servant Elizabeth Jane Atkinson, a bricklayer’s daughter in 1838 and they lived at various locations in Eastrington until John’s death in 1877.

John and Elizabeth Sayer had 6 children. Of them, the eldest Mary Atkinson (1840-1913) never married and worked locally as a Charwoman; youngest daughter Jane Elizabeth Atkinson (1858) also remained a spinster; Thomas Atkinson, a labourer like his father, married Jane Hannah Potter and they had 5 daughters and a son who died as an infant; Robert Atkinson (1853-1926) initially a labourer, gained employment as a temporary rural letter carrier in October 1872, and married Rosalind Davey in 1879.  They had 6 children, two of them boys of whom only one, Robert Arthur, reached adulthood and married thus carrying on the family name.  As to Robert Atkinson Sayer, the Post Office records indicate he earned 14/- a week, which went up to approx 21/- a week by 1912.  By that time his annual salary was £8 17s 10d.  He ceased his postal duties on 13 November 1912, probably due to ill-health though he officially retired on 20 March 1913 with a pension of £40 13s 8d per annum and a further 128 0s 4d allowance under the Superannuation Act of 1909. He received an award of the Imperial Service medal for long service and duties discharged with "diligence and fidelity to the satisfaction of his superior officers". 

And, finally, to middle born son, George Atkinson Sayer (1849-1936). A Wesleyan Merthodist, by the age of 21 he was boarding at North Cave with a joiner and timber merchant, and  working as a journeyman. He later moved to Hull where he married Emily Cherry, a Shipwright’s daughter, in 1876 and was employed in a timber store at the Hull docks, sorting and checking the wood. He himself became a good cabinet maker – he made violins, and a large side board of his is still in the family a 100 years later.  All their children received an education, were encouraged to play the piano and sing, and obtained positions in respectable trades. Eldest daughter Elizabeth (known as Tizzy’) married Railway Worker George Bailey, and lived to the grand age of 102 years. George Atkinson’s son, William Edgar, a Shipping Clerk, married and emigrated to USA . Of the two who died young, Rose was engaged to be married when she was struck down with TB aged just 26. Another son, Herbert Atkinson Sayer (1881-1941), known as Bert, a Corn and seed merchant in Hull, and a skilled joiner himself, later married schoolteacher Florence Caroline Walker and moved to Lincolnshire where he had a son and daughter, worked for the Grimsby Conservancy Board and kept a smallholding with a few goats. He is the grandfather of researcher Laurel Sayer. Bert was the only fatality of the first bombing raid on Grimsby in World War 2 - he was eating lunch in a building on the Royal Dock when it received a direct hit.

Outline tree

                  Lancelote Sayer (~1576 - )
               John Sayer (1606 - ~1671) & Isabell ? ( - 1641)
            Lancelott Sayer (1636 - 1694) & Ann ? (~1636 - 1721)
         James Sayer (1662 - ) & Mary Artist (~1665 - )
      James Sayer (1691 - ) & Mary Tutin (~1692 - )
   James Sayer (1712 - >1745) & Elizabeth Wood (1710 - 1743)
Michael Sayer (1742 - 1806) & Rebekkar Sunman (1740 - 1809)
|   Michael Sayer ( - 1866)
|   & 1. Mary ELLISON (1783 - 1816)
|   |   Rebecca Sayer (1804 - 1816)
|   |   John Sayer (1807 - 1877) & Elizabeth Jane ATKINSON (1815 - 1871)
|   |   |   Mary Atkinson Sayer (1840 - 1913)
|   |   |   William Atkinson Sayer (1841 - >1851)
|   |   |   Thomas Atkinson Sayer (1843 - >1901) & Jane Hannah POTTER (1853 - 1881)
|   |   |   |   Mary Elizabeth Sayer (1868 - <1872)
|   |   |   |   Sarah Ann Sayer (1869 - >1871)
|   |   |   |   Mary Elizabeth Sayer (1872 - )
|   |   |   |   John William Sayer (1874 - 1874)
|   |   |   |   Emma Sayer (1876 - >1901)
|   |   |   |   Clara Sayer (1878 - >1901)
|   |   |   George Atkinson Sayer (1849 - 1936) & Emily CHERRY (1849 - 1932)
|   |   |   |   Mary Elizabeth Sayer (1877 - 1979) & George BAILEY (1878 - 1955)
|   |   |   |   |   George Herbert BAILEY (1904 - 1999) & Zillah Anne GOWSHALL (1907 - 1999)
|   |   |   |   William Edgar Sayer (1879 - 1922) & Susan Elizabeth BIRBECK (1882 - )
|   |   |   |   Herbert Atkinson Sayer (1881 - 1941) & Florence Caroline WALKER (1885 - 1956)
|   |   |   |   |   Florence Emily SAYER (1911 - 1992) & William HARTWELL (1911 - )
|   |   |   |   Rose Emily Sayer (1884 - 1910)
|   |   |   |   George Henry Sayer (1886 - 1888)
|   |   |   |   Lilian M. Sayer (1890 - 1975)
|   |   |   Robert Atkinson Sayer (1853 - 1926) & Rosalind Davey (1859 - >1901)
|   |   |   |   Clara Sayer (1878 - 1906) & Harry KIRBY (1879 - >1940)
|   |   |   |   |   Herbert KIRBY (1903 - )
|   |   |   |   Beatrice Annie Sayer (1880 - >1901)
|   |   |   |   Millicent Sayer (1883 - 1884)
|   |   |   |   Robert Arthur Sayer (1886 - >1901) & Ada Tabitha HOWDLE (1881 - )
|   |   |   |   Ernest Benjamin Sayer (1887 - 1887)
|   |   |   |   Albert Hector Sayer (1887 - 1900)
|   |   |   Jane Elizabeth Atkinson Sayer (1858 - )
|   |   George Sayer (1809 - 1816)
|   |   Elizabeth Sayer (1812 - 1876) & George Johnson (~1806 - 1879)
|   |   |   Robert Johnson (~1835 - 1858)
|   |   William Sayer (1814 - 1816)
|   & 2. Mary A JOHNSON (1794 - 1868)
|   |   Rebecca Sayer (1820 - <1822)
|   |   Rebecca Sayer (1822 - 1890) & Henry Southwick (1819 - >1881)
|   |   |   Turner Southwick (~1849 - >1871)
|   |   |   Laura Southwick (~1852 - >1871)
|   |   |   Alma J Southwick (~1855 - >1861)
|   |   |   Harry Southwick (~1859 - >1881)
|   |   William Sayer (~1823 - 1861-71)
|   >> The family of Thomas Sayer (1783 - 1857) & Jane Linfoot ( - 1876)

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Anyone interested in further details of this branch of the Sayer family, or who is able to provide additional details relevant to this branch, is invited to contact the coordinator for this page Laurel Sayer.