Sir James Sawyer (11 August 1844 – 19 January 1919)[1] was a British physician and cancer researcher famous in his day as a public educator in health matters, an early proponent of "daily habits".

[3][4] Discovering it was for sale while working in a chemist’s shop at Ross-on-Wye, he promptly married Anne George, the daughter of a saddler, and returned to Carlisle.

[7] Born in Martlesham, Suffolk, he had joined the Chestnut Troop of the Royal Artillery, which fought in many battles of the Peninsular War and at Waterloo.

[8][9][10] After the war, his commanding officer, Sir Hew Dalrymple Ross, married a Cumberland heiress and moved to Stonehouse in the parish of Hayton, eight miles from Carlisle.

[8][13] In the town, Sawyer was celebrated as a Waterloo veteran and almost certainly shared stories of his wartime exploits with his young grandson, James.

In November 1854, she married Walter John Breach Scott, a man of exceptional ability who advanced rapidly in business.

[28] Knowing no Latin or Greek, he worked hard to learn the languages, completing extra exercises during the Christmas and Easter holidays and sending them to his Classics Professor.

[28] In March 1863, he won a Warneford scholarship and, in making the award, the College Council praised him for his classical learning and gentlemanly conduct.

[39][43] While a resident physician at the Queen's Hospital, he wrote a book to help medical students diagnose diseases of the lungs and heart.

[50] In 1894, Lady Sawyer presented her husband's portrait, painted by Vivian Crome, to the General Committee of the Queen's Hospital.

[52] In 1908, Sawyer delivered the Lumleian Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians ("Points of Practice in Maladies of the Heart").

[53] In 1900, Sawyer argued that the increased cancer rate in England and Wales was due to the excessive consumption of red meat.

[54][55] He suggested in his 1912 book Coprostasis that colorectal cancer was practically unknown amongst agricultural labourers because they worked in fields and had the opportunity to defecate in the natural squatting position.

[65] On 18 November 1885, Churchill and his wife visited Sawyer's home at Edgbaston to meet female party workers.

[75] In 1890, Sawyer was chairman of the Magdalen Home and Refuge, the General Institution for the Blind, and the Ladies' Association for the Care of Friendless Girls.

[79] In 1910, he was on the committee elected to build a sanatorium to commemorate the late Edward VII and in 1911, he helped organise Birmingham's Coronation festivities.

[82] In 1910, Lady Sawyer became actively involved in the British Red Cross and hosted many meetings at Haseley Hall.

[87] He was interested in heraldry and researched and made the arms of Sir William Harvey, which he presented to the Royal College of Physicians in 1910.

[91][92][9][93] He liked to show visitors to Haseley Hall a silver-mounted hoof of Ronald, the charger that Lord Cardigan rode at the Battle of Balaclava.

[107][108] In 1902, Sawyer commissioned the construction of a house on Cornwall Street, Birmingham (now number 93, and Grade II* listed) to the design of the architects T W F Newton and Cheattle in the Arts and Crafts style.

[116][117][118] Sawyer and his wife lived in the centre of Birmingham for about ten years, firstly at 92 Newhall Street and then at 22 Temple Row.

[119][120] By 1885, the family home was “Green Oaks,” Hagley Road, Edgbaston, where in July 1889, Lord and Lady Churchill stayed overnight and attended a garden party.

[128] After waiting a year for the tenant to leave, Sawyer began altering and enlarging the house, engaging Messrs Wood and Kendrick of West Bromwich as architects and Thomas Rowbotham of Birmingham as builders.

[129] One of the internal features of the house was a magnificent oak staircase next to a stained glass window that bore Sawyer's coat of arms and the motto "Cherche et tu trouveras" ("Seek and thou shalt find").

Intent on impressing visitors, he gave special attention to the approach to the house, adding a lodge, bridge, lawns, and a long driveway.

[89] The following year, they entertained two hundred Ladywood Conservatives at a garden party, using wagonettes to convey their guests from Hatton Station, a distance of two miles.

([140][141] A sketch writer of 1899 poked fun at Sawyer's noble pretensions, portraying him as an interloper who lived in "the home of someone else's ancestors and revived "quaint old customs of feudal days.

[145]Sawyer's ceaseless activity eventually took its toll when close to his seventieth birthday, he fell seriously ill and never fully recovered.

[136] A few weeks later, his wife felt compelled to retire as ruling councillor of the Ladywood Habitation of the Primrose League, a position she had held for over a quarter of a century.

[146] When his body was laid to rest at Haseley Church three days later, few people attended because of his long absence from public life and the icy conditions.