Author: Sawyer, Anna
Biography:
SAWYER, Anna, formerly DAWES (1747-1810: ancestry.co.uk)
She was baptised on 11 March 1747 at Birmingham St. Martin, the daughter of John Dawes. She married William Sawyer, a chapman and dealer, on 23 Oct. 1774 in the same church. He may have gone through bankruptcy proceedings 1793-1797. In her Poems (1801) she refers to a life of itinerant dependence in Somerset, Gloucestershire, and the Midlands. Among the subscribers are various members of the Dawes family, local and London surgeons, and Birmingham manufacturers. Hannah More and Anna Seward also subscribed. Her sister Catherine had married the surgeon Thomas Guest in 1776 and they may have been instrumental in raising subscriptions and financial support. Sawyer's husband later entered into an informal partnership with Theodore and Philemon Price, well-known Birmingham nail and iron manufacturers. They also subscribed to her volume. Her husband died 14 May 1808. She died 25 July 1810, with Theodore Price confirming an instruction to place £300 in an annuity for her sister. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Jul. 2020; findmypast.com 21 Jul 2020; Gloucester Journal6 June 1808; GM June 1808, 561.) AA