Henry William SAUNDERS JP (1860-1949)

Henry Saunders in 1911 (when he was 51), as Chairman of the then Epsom Urban District Council.
Photograph with thanks to Bourne Hall Museum.

A cutting from the local press (thought to date from 1947 – and of which more below) reports:

“Both because of his having spent the whole of his now somewhat long life in Epsom, and because of his having been actively interested in the work and inhabitants of the place, Mr H W Saunders, who possesses a good memory, is able to speak informingly about the history of Epsom during many years. On Friday the Epsom Rotarians listened to him telling about ‘Epsom as I have known it’.”

This article records something of Henry Saunders’ “somewhat long life” over which, from fairly modest beginnings, he rose to become, among other things, a Councillor (with a term as Chairman) of the then Epsom Urban District Council and a Justice of the Peace – and helps show that, as the cutting says, he was always “actively interested” in the work and inhabitants of the town.

Henry was born in Epsom on 28 March 1860. He was the first of five children born to Charles Saunders (occasionally Sanders) and Priscilla (née Nightingale). His parents had married on 25 December 1859 in St Mary’s, Newington – just to the west of the Elephant and Castle. The Register entry notes that both were resident in Newington Crescent and that Charles was a “Whitesmith” (someone who does finer work than a blacksmith, and on various metals in addition to iron or steel). Charles’ father, John Sanders, was a “Boot Maker” and Pricilla’s father was a “Carpenter”.

Both Charles and Priscilla were born in Mitcham, and seem likely to have first met there. They may have been in Newington while Charles learned his trade, but then made their marital home in Epsom. The 1861 Census records the mid-20s couple and 1 year old Henry living in Clay Hill. That was the then name for the roadway which, since the late 1800s, has been known (as it leaves the town centre) as West Street and, having passed under the railway bridge, West Hill. The house, just a few doors away from the Marquis of Granby, has the present day address of 8 West Street. Charles is listed as a “Journeyman Whitesmith”, meaning he was now fully qualified to work in the field as an employee, but not yet able to be a self-employed “master craftsman”.

What is now No 8 West Street, during its 1979 refurbishment.
(The building is nowadays hidden by trees.)
Photograph, taken by Henry Saunders’ son Bill, from the writer’s collection.

The family was still in Clay Hill/West Street for the 1871 Census and Charles was still a Whitesmith, but there were now three children. Over the next few years, two more children were born, but the couple’s first daughter, Hemrietta, died.

Reverting to oldest child Henry (the subject of this article), his schooling was at Ewell’s West Street School, after which he began work at Dorling printers. He was also, for some time, a member of the “Epsom Rifles”.

A young Henry Saunders in the uniform of the “Epsom Rifles”.
Photograph with thanks to Bourne Hall Museum.

During the 1870s, Henry’s father, Charles, changed career, taking employment at the Epsom Water Works as an engineer. These Works were, as now, in East Street and the family moved to the nearby and now-lost No 13. The 1881 Census records the family (parents and four children) living there, listing mid-40s Charles as “Engineer to Local Board of Health” and 21 year old Henry as a “Printer”.

In Q3 1886, Henry married Sophia Leggett in her home district of Hartismere, Suffolk. They were both aged 26. It is not clear how they met: the only record of her being outside Suffolk is in the 1881 Census when she was a 21 year old “Servant/Cook” in the household of the Revd E W P Betts, a Curate in Watton Village, Hertfordshire. The couple returned to Epsom and set up home at 13 East Street.

Henry’s father, Charles, died at 13 East Street on 9 December 1890, aged 56. After a funeral at St Martin of Tours on 13 December, he was buried in Epsom Cemetery (Grave D120A). The Probate record gives his surname as “SAUNDERS (otherwise SANDERS)” and notes that he had been “Engineer to Waterworks”. The widowed Priscilla was granted administration of his almost £291 estate – enough to purchase some £38,240 worth of goods and services at 2020 values. She then moved to the now Lost Mead House in South Street (the site of the present day “Novellus Court”, alongside Rosebery Park), where she is recorded in the 1891 Census together with a couple of her sons (one a “Mechanical Engineer” and the other an “Apprentice Plumber”) plus a couple of lodgers.

Henry and Sophia remained at 13 East Street, being recorded there in the 1891 Census records together with their first two children, 3 year old Lillian and new-born Florence. Henry is now listed as a “Printer’s Compositor”.

Also in 1891, Henry was among the first to join the newly established Epsom Cycling Club, and he is known to be the individual arrowed below in an early 1890s photograph of the members outside their social HQ of the Rising Sun in Heathcote Road, Epsom.

The first members of Epsom Cycling Club, in which Henry Saunders is arrowed.
Photograph with thanks to Bourne Hall Museum.

A few years later, the Club followed member Walter Busbridge (son of Albert Busbridge, landlord of the Rising Sun) when he took on the Wellington Hotel  in Epsom’s High Street. The Wellington was also the HQ of the Epsom Branch of the Ancient Order of Foresters, having been founded there in 1860 (hence its formal title of “Court Wellington (No.3449)“). Henry became Honorary Secretary of this Friendly Society in 1895. (As we shall see below, he served in that capacity until 1938. He would thus have been closely involved in the Foresters taking on and running – as the now-lost “Foresters Hall” – the former Methodist chapel in Waterloo Road that had been vacated on that Church’s 1914 move to Ashley Road.)

He began involving himself more directly into civic affairs, serving as the Secretary to the Catering Committee of the local “great and good” dealing with relevant aspects of the Town’s day-long celebrations to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee on 22 June 1897. (He repeated this role in the Coronation celebrations for King George V in 1902 and for Edward VII in 1911.)

Henry clearly did well in his day job at Dorlings: the 1901 Census describes him, now 41, as a “Printer’s Foreman”. He and his family (now with a third child, 1 year old Nellie) had moved to one of the semi-detached Kinburn Cottages in Laburnum Road, Epsom – which (later numbered 20) was Henry’s home until his death in 1949.

Henry Saunders’ long term home (on the left) at what is now 20 Laburnum Road.
Photograph by Roger Morgan © 2021

Increasingly involved in local affairs, Henry was in 1904 elected to the Epsom Urban District Council, the first of several continuous terms as Councillor over the next 20 years. In 1911, he served as the Council’s Chairman (having been Vice-Chairman in 1910). As such, he was an honorary Justice of the Peace for the year. 1911 was the year in which George V was crowned and, in addition to Henry’s chairing the Council, he was again Secretary of the Town’s “Catering Committee”. (His photograph at the head of this article is from the local 1911 Coronation Celebrations programme.)

The 1911 Census recorded the 51 year old Henry (now a “Printer, Foreman”) and Sophia in Kinburn cottages together with their two younger children, 20 year old Florence (a “Post Office Clerk”) and 11 year old school girl, Nellie. (The couple’s oldest child, 22 year old Lillian, had left home to work as a “Domestic Nurse” in Hertfordshire. She seems never to have married and is found in the 1939 Register as Matron of the Brabazon Girls’ Home in Reigate.)

In early October 1913, Henry’s mother, Priscilla, died at the age of 87. She was buried with her husband in Grave D120A of Epsom Cemetery. Sadly, Henry’s wife Sophia died on 4 January 1916. She was aged 56 and was buried with her parents in law. Tragically, Henry’s daughter Nellie died on 4 April 1917 aged just 17. She was buried with her late mother and grandparents.

The headstones on Grave D120A of Epsom Cemetery in which are buried
Henry’s parents, his first wife and their third child, Nellie.
Photograph by Roger Morgan © 2021.

(The wording on the main headstone is now beginning to flake off.
For the record, all the wording is transcribed in the annex below.)

On a brighter note, the widowed 58 year old Henry got married again, in Q4 1918, to 31 year old Olive Maud Briar, registered in her home district of Alverstoke, Hampshire. It is not clear how they met: the 1911 Census recorded her as a housemaid in the home of “Yacht Builder” Charles Nicholson in Gosport. There was also good news in the marriage of his daughter Florence to Albert W W Bolton in Q2 1920, registered in the Epsom District, but she then seems lost to the readily available records.

It was mentioned earlier that Henry had been an ex officio Justice of the Peace during his 1911 year as Chairman of the Epsom Urban District Council. A year or so before he stood down from the Council in about 1924, he was created a JP in his own right. That was also the year in which Henry and his second wife had their only child, William Henry (known as “Bill”), who was born on 11 August 1924.

At some point, Henry changed careers, moving from printing to working for the Inland Revenue as a “Collector of Taxes.” As shown on the official envelope below, he set up his office in Foresters Hall (which had a range of smaller rooms) – of which, as noted above, he was Hon Sec.

One of Henry Saunders’ official envelopes as a “Collector of Taxes”.
Image with thanks to Bourne Hall Museum.

After 43 years as Hon Sec of the Epsom Branch of the Ancient Order of Foresters (including a term as “District Chief Ranger” – the abbreviation “PDCR” in the label of the photograph below stands for “Past District Chief Ranger”) and now aged 78, Henry stood down from the post. This was marked by a presentation to him in Foresters Hall on 10 February 1939.

The 10 February 1939 Foresters’ presentation to Henry on his retirement.
Photograph (with its label, as inset) with thanks to Bourne Hall Museum.

The 1939 Register records Henry, Olive and their son Bill  still at 20 Laburnum Road. The now 79 year old Henry is listed as “Collector of Taxes, Retired”; 52 year old Olive with the conventional “Unpaid Domestic Duties”; and 15 year old Bill was “at school”.

In 1947, the 87 year old Henry wrote an article for the Epsom Herald setting out his interesting memories of Epsom High Street and its various characters in about 1900. The text of that article may be read via THIS LINK. It is followed there by a probably contemporaneous report of his address to the Epsom Rotarians (part of which was quoted at the beginning of this article), which may well have been the trigger for his Epsom Herald piece.

After a long life, lived well, Henry died on 30 July 1949, aged 89. His widow, Olive, and son, Bill (now an “Electrician”), were awarded administration of his estate of £3,683 – enough to purchase some £133,000 worth of goods and services at 2020 values.

Roger Morgan © 2021

ANNEX: Wording of the Saunders’ headstones on Grave D120A in Epsom Cemetery

In Loving Memory of
⊕
CHARLES SAUNDERS
WHO DIED DEC.9.1890
AGED 56 YEARS
A LIGHT HAS FROM OUR HOUSEHOLD GONE
A VOICE WE LOVED IS STILLED
A VACANT PLACE IS IN OUR HOME
THAT NEVER CAN BE FILLED
Also of
PRISCILLA SAUNDERS
THE BELOVED WIFE OF THE ABOVE
WHO DIED OCTOBER [    *     ]
IN HER 78th YEAR.

[* Now illegible, but her burial was on 11 October 1913.]

= = = = =

SOPHIA
DEARLY LOVED WIFE OF
HENRY WILLIAM SAUNDERS
AT REST 4th JANUARY 1919
AGED 56 YEARS
“SHE HATH DONE WHAT SHE COULD” **
NELLIE
YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF THE ABOVE
BORN 9th AUGUST 1899
AT REST 4th APRIL 1917