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Thomas DYER (1808–1856)
His wife Mrs Anne DYER, née Hedges (1814–1858)
Their sons Thomas Hedges DYER (1839–1859)
and Andrew James DYER (1856–1858)
[With a mention of their daughter, Mrs Anne Elizabeth Smith, c.1832–1862]
St Paul section: Row 19, Grave E15 (St Paul ref. M16)

Thomas Dyer was born in Northleach, Gloucestershire in 1808 and baptised there on 21 March, the son of William Dyer and his wife Martha.

Anne Hedges was born in Wytham, Berkshire in 1814 and baptised there on 25 September. She was the daughter of the farmer Thomas Hedges and Anne Blake of Stanton Harcourt, who were married at Cumnor on 9 January 1811. Their first son Thomas was baptised at Cumnor at the end of the same year, and their other seven children at Wytham: James (1813), Anne herself (1814), Eliza (1816), Hannah (1818), Elizabeth (1820), John (1823), and Ellen (1825).

On 6 December 1836 at Wytham, Thomas Dyer of St Giles married Anne Hedges. They had eight children:

• Ann Elizabeth Dyer (born at St Giles Road in 1837 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 6 December)
• Thomas Hedges Dyer (born at St Giles Road in 1839 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 22 November)
• Ellen Dyer (born at St Giles Road in 1841 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 7 November; received into the church on 25 January 1842)
• Eve Martha Dyer (born at St Giles Road in 1844 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 13 March)
• Althea Blake Dyer (born at St Giles Road in 1846 and baptised at St Giles’s Church on 29 July);
  died aged fifteen months and buried at St Giles’s Church on 1 September 1847
• Eliza Harris Dyer (born at Adelaide Street in 1850 and baptised at St Paul’s Church on 20 October)
• James Dyer (born in Oxford in 1853/4)
• Andrew James Dyer (born at Adelaide Street in 1856 and baptised at St Paul’s Church on 28 September):
  died aged 22 months in 1858.

Thomas Dyer was a grocer, and he and his wife began their married life in St Giles Road (the area at the south end of the Woodstock and Banbury Roads).

At some point between September 1847 and October 1850 they moved to Adelaide Street, and the 1851 census shows Thomas Dyer living there with his wife Anne and their children Thomas (11), Ellen (9). Eve (7), and Eliza (six months). Their eldest daughter Ann (13) was staying at Northleach with her uncle John Dyer, who was the former postmaster there, and his wife Joyce.

By about 1854 their eldest son Thomas Hedges Dyer became the servant of Edward Lamley Brockliss, the cook of Worcester College.

Thomas Dyer died in 1856, several months before the birth of his youngest son Andrew:

† Thomas Dyer died at Adelaide Street at the age of 48 on 10 June 1856 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 17 June (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

His death notice read: “June 10, after a lingering illness, borne with patience and resignation, Mr. Thos. Dyer, aged 48, for many years grocer in St. Giles’s-street, in this city, leaving a widow and six children [soon to be seven] to lament the loss of kind husband and an affectionate father.” The Sexton's notebook states that he was buried at a depth of 7 feet, and that his wife and two sons were buried in the same grave. .

His wife died two years later in 1858:

† Mrs Ann Dyer née Hedges died at Adelaide Street at the age of 44 on 27 January 1858 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 31 January (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

Her death notice in Jackson’s Oxford Journal read: “Jan. 27, Ann, widow of Mr. Thomas Dyer, late grocer, St. Giles’s, and eldest daughter of Mr. Thomas Hedges, Frise Farm, near this city, aged 42 [gravestone and parish register say 44], leaving seven orphan children.”

Their orphaned baby son was presumably cared for by his elder sisters, but died at Adelaide Street later the same year:

† Andrew James Dyer died at Adelaide Street at the age of 1 year 10 months on 12 August 1858 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 15 August (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

His death notice in Jackson’s Oxford Journal read: “August 12, Andrew James, youngest son of the late Thomas and Ann Dyer, aged two years.”

The following year their eldest son Thomas Hedges Dyer also died at Adelaide Street:

† Thomas Hedges Dyer died at Adelaide Street at the age of 19 on 21 March 1859 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 25 March (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

His death notice read: “March 21, in Adelaide-street, Thomas Hedges Dyer, eldest son of the late Mr. Thos. Dyer, grocer, St. Giles’s, in this city, in the 20th year of his age. He had been for several years a faithful servant to Mr. Brockliss, cook of Worcester College.”

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Ann Elizabeth Dyer (born 1837)

Mentioned on the above headstone, but not buried here

At the time of the 1861 census Ann (23), the eldest daughter of Thomas & Anne Dyer, was a barmaid, visiting the family of the hotel keeper John Gibbons at 5 West Street, Osney. On 26 January 1864 at Newington, Surrey, she married Henry Lacey Smith.

She does not appear to have had any children, and died in Newington at the age of 30 on 18 July 1868. She was buried at Nunhead Cemetery in Newington, but is mentioned on her parents’ gravestone.

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The other four surviving children of Thomas and Anne Dyer from 1871

• Ellen Dyer (born 1841) was a 19-year-old dressmaker in 1861, paying a visit to the home of the coach-trimmer Henry Pittman at 10 Adelaide Street, Oxford. She is probably the woman of that name (as her age and father’s name match) who married Frederick Dyer at St Mary’s Church, Redcliffe, Bristol on 14 September 1873.
• Eve Martha Dyer (born 1844) may be the Martha Dyer who in 1861 was nursemaid to the family of the farmer William Nichols in Moulsoe, Buckinghamshire. In 1871 was aged 26 and working as a nurse to the family of the tobacco manufacturer Charles Lambert in Battersea, and in 1881 was a sick nurse of a wine merchant’s family in Fetcham, Surrey. She married Thomas William Whitehouse in the Kensington district in the third quarter of 1883. At the time of the 1891 census she was living in Paddington with her husband, who was a bootmaker, and two of his children from his first marriage plus Jessie (6), Annie (4), and Thomas (nine months); she was still there with her husband and children in 1901. By 1911 she was a widow. Mrs Eve Whitehouse died in the Wandsworth district at the age of 86 in 1930.
• Eliza Harris Dyer (born 1850) was aged 10 in 1861 and living at The Green, Northleach with her uncle John Dyer, who was now an accountant, her aunt Joyce, who was a schoolmistress, and her brother James. Eliza never married. In 1871 when she was 20 she was a parlourmaid in the home of a tobacco manufacturer in Battersea, where her sister Eve also worked; in 1881 she was a lady’s maid in Hastings; and in 1891 and 1901 she was a lady’s maid in Alveston, Warwickshire. She died in London at the age of 86 on 29 December 1936, and her executors were her nephews John William Dyer and John Whitehouse.
• James Dyer (born 1853/4) was aged 7 in 1861 and living at The Green, Northleach with his uncle John Dyer, who was now an accountant, his aunt Joyce, who was a schoolmistress, and his sister Eliza. He married Adelaide Gowing in the Chelsea district in 1877, and according to the 1911 census they had eleven children, only five of whom survived. In 1881 he was an oilman (colour) living at Ratcliff, London with his wife Adelaide and their children Ethel (12), James (10), May (7), Minnie (3), and Dorothy (1). In 1901 he was a commission agent for a oilman and he and Adelaide were living in West Ham with all five of their surviving children still at home; and in 1911 they were living at West Ham.

Eliza (10) and James (7), were living