The Royal Oak was on Tamworth Road, near the canal bridge and right on the edge of Sawley parish. The adjacent coal wharf on the canal was known as Royal Oak Wharf. The Royal Oak was said to have opened in 1777 to serve men working on the canal.
The first publican we’ve found is Hannah Harrison. She was born Hannah Howard c1794 in Barton in Fabis and married Thomas Harrison in Thrumpton. They lived in Castle Donington before moving to Sawley around 1819. After Thomas died around1822, Hannah went on to have 2 more children. On the 1841 census Hannah was running the Royal Oak, but she may have already been there 20 years. He elder son, Thomas, ran the Seven Stars Inn in Derby. Her younger son, Joseph Harrison, married Mary Lee (or Lees) from Chilwell.
In the mid-1860s Mary’s young niece, Frances Ann Lee from Hyson Green, was sent to the Royal Oak for a holiday. She was only 6 or 7 years old and was put on a train with a label attached to her coat. Mary felt she was in such a poor way that she could not send Frances Ann back to Hyson Green and decided she should live with her at The Royal Oak. Mary’s brother John Lee, the little girl’s father, had married Mary Street in Nottingham in 1843. He was a lacemaker and they had 3 children before she died in 1856. John then married her sister Rebecca and went on to have 2 more children, including Frances Ann.
After Hannah Harrison died in 1874, she was briefly succeeded at the Royal Oak by her son Joseph. But he died later the same year, leaving his widow Mary in charge.
Meanwhile, Mary’s niece Frances Ann seems to have stayed around Long Eaton, where she married Frederick William Robinson in 1878. Frederick Robinson is thought to have bought the pub in the late 1870s and after Mary Harrison died in 1880 he took over the licence. He remained until his death in 1892, the year the Royal Oak was first connected to mains water after a pipe from Long Eaton was laid over the canal bridge.
His widow Frances Ann (who’d arrived as a little girl in the 1860s) then took over the licence. She married again, to Thomas Parker in 1894, and the licence was transferred to his name. In 1901 he was charged with selling watered-down rum and with permitting drunkenness on the premises. Frances died in 1909, but Thomas Parker continued as the licensee. In 1913/14 Thomas and the five Robinson children from Frances’ first marriage had the Royal Oak rebuilt. Thomas Parker died in 1916.
Frances Ann Lee (1858-1909)
Frederick William Robinson (1852-92)
Thomas Parker (1857-1916)
Stella Robinson (1883-1941)
Samuel Robinson (1891-1972)
Frances had had 4 sons and a daughter with Frederick Robinson. The oldest, Frederick, went to London to work at the Royal Small Arms factory in Enfield. The daughter, Stella, married Jack Sisson in 1916. By 1921 Stella Sisson was the licensee at the Royal Oak, while Jack worked as a storeman for Ericsson in Beeston. Her younger brother, Samuel Robinson (a lace draughtsman at Brittania Mills) was also living there, as were 3 (Parker) stepsisters and a stepbrother.
By 1939 Stella Sisson and her brother Samuel Robinson were partners at the pub. In 1941 they formed the Royal Oak Hotel (Sawley) Ltd company, with three other members of the Robinson family.
From 1946 the landlord was Samuel Lee, a former engine driver and perhaps a relation of the Mary Lee who’d married Joseph Harrison of the Royal Oak 100 years earlier. Samuel left Sawley in 1957 to take over a pub in Bulwell, where he was found dead in his beer cellar 5 years later.
The Royal Oak c1903. Stella Robinson (the older child) with Thomas and Frances Ann Parker and their 3 daughters
In the early 1960s the landlord was LG Edwards.
In the late 1960s it was David Petty.
From 1970 it was David & Elizabeth Priestley. They were still there in 1978 when the pub was refitted, and the two public rooms were knocked together to form one large bar.
The Royal Oak closed in about 2009. It was demolished in 2014 and, several years later, replaced by the Long Eaton View Care Home.
