Eleanor was born in Rodmarton, near Cirencester. Her father, Rev John Sayer Haygarth was Principal of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester in 1851. Her mother was also Eleanor (nee Cripps). John and Eleanor had six children, Eleanor was their second. Both parents were children of Priests. John Sayer was born in the Close, Winchester.
In 1851 the family were living at the Royal Agricultural College. . Their youngest child, Graham, was 5 months old. The Household had 4 Servants: a Nurse, Under-Nurse, Cook and Page.
By 1861, the Rev John having died, Eleanor, a Fund Holder, was with her children and 2 Servants, living at Barlingness House, in Cirencester.
Their family was a fairly typical family of Victorian times:
Eleanor's older brother, John William, after matriculating at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, emigrated to Australia in 1865, and became a sheep farmer. Her next brother Francis Hulton went into the Navy and died on active service in 1888. Brother Graham Albert emigrated to Australia in 1869, and was shot and murdered by DA Brown at a meeting of the directors and shareholders of the Charters Towers Pyrites Company in the Australian Bank of Commerce in Mosman St. in Queensland in 1901.
Sister Annie Sarah and mother Eleanor spent time in Australia in 1877 visiting John William or Graham? Brother Edward Brownlow didn't marry, and became a Solicitor. In 1911, sister Annie Sarah was living at Siddington Manor, near Cirencester with him and they had 3 Household Servants.
He was living at Siddington Manor when he died in 1915.
In 1865 John George Gresson married Eleanor Sophia Haygarth, at St Marys in Reading.
In 1866, Eleanor and John's first son, Arthur George, was baptised at Christchurch. (He was feeble-minded from birth, and spent some of his life in an Institution.) The family were then living at Richmond House in Richmond Road.
In 1871 John Gresson was Head of Richmond House School, Chapel Road, with Eleanor, Arthur, Frances and Charles. Eleanor's brother Frederick Haygarth was Assistant Teacher.
This was a School for boys aged 12 upwards, from all parts of the globe.
By 1881 John, Eleanor and their two younger sons Francis (born 1868) and Charles (born 1869), together with two resident Masters and 39 boys aged between 8 and 14 and from all over England and the Empire, plus nine other folk, from Matron to Kitchenmaid, were living in West Mansions in Heene Terrace.
Charles went on to study at Lancing College and then at Hertford College, Oxford.
Francis studied at Winchester College and Oriel College, Oxford and went on to be Headmaster at a School in Crowborough. He married in 1898 and retired from teaching in 1936 after 43 years teaching at the Grange, Crowborough.
After John's death, in 1889, Eleanor continued as School Proprietess' at West Mansions, with son Francis assisting, but by 1901 she had gone back to Gloucestershire with her son, Arthur, plus a Cook and a Servant (named Temperance). Eleanor was living on her own means.
By 1911 she and Arthur had moved to live with single son Charles who was farming at Edgecote Lodge Farm, near Banbury. (Charles died 6 months after his mother, by then living in London)
Eleanor was living at Belmont, in Norfolk Street, Worthing when she died. Probate was given to Annie Sarah, Francis and Charles. She left over £8000.