Jason Saunders
Mayor of Oxford 1875/6
Jason Saunders (1824–1911) was born at Freeland in Oxfordshire. His parents were Edward Saunders (born in Eynsham in 1790) and Alice Mercer (born in Hanborough in 1789). They had married at Hanborough Church on 27 October 1811, and Jason's older siblings Daniel and Harriet were baptised at Hanborough Church in 1819 and 1822 respectively; Jason himself was baptised on 24 October 1824; and his younger siblings Josiah and Emma were baptised in 1830 and 1832.
At the time of the 1841 census, Edward and Alice Saunders were living in Hanborough with Josiah (10) and Emma (9). Jason had already left home at the age of 16 and was living at 16 living at Corn Street, Witney as the servant of the weaver Charles Brown. Ten years later his parents were living on their own: Edward was still an agricultural labourer at the age of 60, and his wife Alice a glover at the age of 61.
By 1851, when he was 26, Saunders was the valet of the brewer James Morrell (then 77) and living at Headington Hill Hall. (This was the old hall, which is now just a wing of the magnificent new hall built by Morrell’s son.) Morrell was to die three years later in 1854, but by that time Saunders had married his wife Hannah or Anna (born in Reading in 1827) and they appear to have moved to Birmingham, where their daughter Alice Jeanette was born in 1854.
By the time of the 1861 census, Saunders (aged 36) was working as a cartage agent for the Great Western Railway, and he was to be associated with this business for the rest of his life. He and his wife Hannah were then living at 47 St Aldate’s with one servant; their six-year-old daughter was not with them on census night.
Saunders came on to the old council in 1864 as a representative of the South Ward and remained a councillor until his death over forty years later.
The 1871 census shows Saunders still living at Folly Bridge Street, St Aldate’s with his wife and daughter, who was now 16. He was elected Sheriff of Oxford later that year.
By September 1874 Saunders, who was very interested in stock-breeding, had moved to Medley Manor House in order to farm. His chief interest on the council was the Corporation farm work at Sandford.
According to Jackson’s Oxford Journal for 19 September 1874, Saunders got into trouble for not paying a toll at St Clement’s:
Mr Jason Saunders of Medley Farm was summoned by Alf Hanger, lessee of St Clement’s Toll Gate, for unlawfully passing through without paying 2d, the toll legally due on the 9th inst. for a carriage with two wheels, drawn by one horse. The Mayor said that the said Mr Saunders had discovered his error and wished to apologise and as Mr Hanger did not press charges, the summons was withdrawn.
Just a year later, in September 1875, Saunders was elected Mayor. He was made an Alderman in August 1880, and was also a Justice of the Peace. He was also Chairman of the Oxford Tramways Company for many years.
The 1881 census shows Alderman Saunders living at Medley Manor Farm with his wife. They now had four servants living in their house: a cook, housemaid, groom, and a laundress. Their daughter Alice was by this time married to the Revd Charles de Havilland: the couple already had one son, and their second, famous son, Geoffrey de Havilland, was born at Magdala House, Terriers Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on 27 July 1882. On census night ten years later in 1891, Mrs Alice de Havilland was staying with her parents at the farm on census night with her two young daughters, who were born in Nuneaton.
Because Saunders was on the Municipal Buildings Committee when the new Town Hall was opened (1897), his head is carved in stone in the Council Chamber corridor (left).
His arms are set in a window of the Council Chamber (right)
At the time of the 1901 census Saunders and his wife were still living at Medley Manor Farm; but in 1905, when Saunders was 80, he moved into Oxford to live at the Cedars in Park Town. He was probably able to see his grandson, Geoffrey de Havilland, when he was a boarder at St Edward’s School in Oxford, and in 1908, when de Havilland was 26, Saunders gave him £1000 to build his first aeroplane, which eventually led to the foundation of the de Havilland aircraft company in 1920.
Saunders died at Park Town on 24 November 1911. At the time of his death he was still a cartage agent for the railway, and had about 40 men in his employ as clerks and carters.
Saunders' funeral service was held at All Saints (at that time the City Church), and a great many people attended and also lined the pavements. Saunders’s grandsons Geoffrey and Hereward de Havillland were present. The Mayor and Corporation processed to the funeral from the Town Hall, headed by the Chief Constable and a Sergeant carrying the mace draped in black. Saunders was buried in Holywell Cemetery (Plot E.297).
Descendants of Jason Saunders
- Saunders' only daughter, Alice, died in 1911 at the age of 57, following a depressive decline. Her husband Charles remarried, and died in 1920
- Charles' and Alice’s son, Sir Geoffrey, died in 1965. His eldest son, also Geoffrey, and his youngest son John had predeceased him, having been killed in flying accidents
- Walter de Havilland, father of Olivia de Havilland and her sister Joan Fontaine, was the half-brother of Alice’s husband Charles, so they are not related by blood to Saunders.
See also:
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 29 November 1911, p. 1 (picture of Saunders in court dress); p. 9 (obituary with pictures of Saunders in his Aldermanic robes, his coffin being borne into the city church, and Manor House, Medley); and p. 13a (obituary and description of funeral)
- Photograph of Saunders and his wife outside Medley Manor Farm in Malcolm Graham, The Changing Faces of West Oxford (p. 71)
- 1841 Census: Oxford (Witney), 872/30/34; his parents (Hanborough), 890/01/5
- 1851 Census: Oxford (St Clement’s), 1727/314; his parents (Church Hanborough), 1731/11
- 1861 Census: Oxford (St Aldate’s), 893/38
- 1871 Census: Oxford (Botley), 1264/43
- 1881 Census: Oxford (St Thomas), 1504/70
- 1891 Census: Oxford (St Thomas 3), 1169/30
- 1901 Census: Oxford (St Thomas), 1386/59
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for Saunders' grandson, Sir Geoffrey de Havilland