Our History

E Sargeant & Son: Over 300 years of service

E Sargeant & Son are proud to be continuing a heritage that traces back three centuries, serving our local community with distinction and respect since 1712.

Little is known about the early years of the 18^th century, although it is likely that the business started as builders in Slough, with funerals carried out (or ‘undertaken’) as a side line. By the nineteenth century the picture becomes clearer as more information can be traced.

His son Edward was born in 1851, and in 1878 William handed him the duties of clerkship. In the same year Edward was also elected collector of the Poor Rate for the Parish of Slough. He was described as having a ‘…genial, kind, and sympathetic temperament, always ready to assist a deserving case….In his quiet and unostentatious way he did a great deal of good, and of him it may be truly said that he never let his right hand know what his left hand did.’ When he died aged 64 in September 1915, his coffin was carried by some of his staff, many of whom had served him faithfully over the years.

After a service in the parish church Edward was buried in a vault in the churchyard. His obituary in The Slough, Eton and Windsor Observer noted: ‘A keen businessman, he built up a large connection as an undertaker and stone-mason, and of late years he has received the great assistance from his nephew, Mr E Sargeant, Jnr.’

As stonemasons, E Sargeant & Sons have also left their mark on the local area. In 1921 a war memorial was erected in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church, Slough, recording the names of local service personnel lost in war, designed by Alfred Y Nutt and constructed by E Sargeant.

Sargeant’s name can be associated with Windsor since the early part of the twentieth century when it is believed that an existing funeral business in St Leonard’s Road was acquired. What is known for certain is that by the interwar years the firm had expanded by opening a network of branches. Whilst the head office remained at Church Street in Slough, the 1935 edition of Kelly’s Post Office Directory lists the following locations: by the cemetery entrance on Stoke Road in Slough; at 61 St Leonard’s Road and 14 & 16 Victoria Street in Windsor and also at Iona Parade in Cippenham. Although these branches remained open for a number of years, by the 1980s only Church Street and St Leonard’s Road existed. Over the years both sites have been developed, including the provision of purpose-built chapels of rest at Windsor. The business remained in the family until the death of Edward ‘Teddy’ Sargeant in 1988. His secretary, Pat O’Neill, then took over before selling it to Funeral Partners Ltd shortly before her death in 2009.

As part of the Funeral Partners group, E Sargeant & Sons continues to serve families from its funeral homes in Windsor, Maidenhead & Slough.

In the years that Sargeant’s has been serving the community, funerals have changed considerably. During the 1920s the firm replaced their horse-drawn hearses with a motorised fleet including ‘all weather coaches.’ It’s also probable that around this time Sargeant’s would have carried out their first cremation. When the business was founded and until the late nineteenth century all funerals would have been burials.

As Slough Crematorium did not open until 1963, the request for a cremation would have involved a journey to Britain’s first crematorium at Woking, which had opened in 1885. In the 1930s the firm’s advertising started to dispense with the description ‘undertaker’ by adopting ‘funeral director’ – a term indicating the changing scope of the work and increasing responsibility.

Two other important areas of change would have been encountered in the 1950s. The first is the decline in the use of coffins constructed from solid elm or oak. The use of veneered wood gradually became widespread and more recently coffins made from a wide range of other materials such as bamboo, wicker and cardboard have become available.

A second area of change concerns caring for the deceased. In the past the deceased would have been kept at home in a coffin until the time of the funeral. This tradition gradually changed as more deaths took place in hospital and chapels of rest were provided to accommodate the coffin. Embalming was occasionally carried out, although it was not until the late 1970s when this was practised to any great extent.

It’s against this background of change over a three hundred year period that Sargeant’s has served thousands of families during their time of need and continues to do so.

We are proud to be engaged with our local community, such as our five-year pledge of £50,000 to Thames Hospice, sponsoring the Great Get Together celebrating the life of Jo Cox, and supporting the annual carol service at St Mary’s Church.