Pickle Manufacturer

Is this the best researched dead end ever?

When I started looking into my mother’s Lazenby ancestors, I found a handwritten note, written by her mother the gist of which was that the Lazenby family could be traced to one John Lazenby who married an Elizabeth Harvey, the daughter of the proprietor of the “Black Dog” at Bedfont, and that her father Peter Harvey had given her the recipe to his special sauce. This had then led to the formation of the ”Elizabeth Lazenby and Son” sauce and pickle company.

My mother’s family history research notebook had several pages dedicated to her research into this story, including finding the will of William Howard Harvey Lazenby who died in 1875.

There is no doubt that John Lazenby did marry Elizabeth Harvey, nor that the company “Elizabeth Lazenby & Sons” was a thriving sauce and pickle manufacturing company eventually subsumed into Crosse & Blackwell. You can still buy Harvey’s Sauce today.
http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/harveysauce.htm

I can produce a complete descendant tree from Benjamin Lazenby of Pontefract to his grandson John Lazenby who married Elizabeth Harvey in 1776 in Bloomsbury, right through to Walter Lazenby, who was chairman of the company in 1901, and died in 1910, and his son Charles Lazenby, who in 1911 was his father’s successor as chairman of the company.

But I was also able to confirm that my Lazenby ancestors were nothing to do with this, instead being farmers in Huntington, near York!

 

Classic!! So easily done, especially with names you think aren't that common.

 

What a wonderful piece of history, and how sad you are not directly connected to them! Pity my English family's 'boiled sweets and toffees' confectionery business didn't do so well, although the American side managed to produce them on a far larger scale I had a look to see where you could buy it....purely out of curiosity as i thought the quote from one web page that it was

I couldn't find it, even though i tried eBay and all sorts. So i am just going to have to make it!! Ebay had some old newspaper adverts for sale but that was it.

 

Maybe you can't get it now. I know my wife bought some for me while I was still chasing the dead end. It tasted good. At one point I received an e-mail from the retired chemist of Crosse & Blackwell who said he had the secret recipe, but I have lost that e-mail now. Another time I was contacted by a member of staff at the residential care home which is former residence of the last members of the Lazenby family to run the pickle business. What fun! And all for the wrong Lazenbys!