Hundreds of people were expected at a memorial service to John Cundall who was a well known and respected figure through his ties with Cundalls, the company which his family founded in the early 19th century.

Mr Cundall, 82, passed away on Saturday January 23 after a day spent watching the family shooting followed by a meal in Weaverthorpe.

And for the partners of Cundalls – the Malton-based auctioneering house, surveyor, estate agent and valuer – his death has been described as a "great loss".

Peter Elwess, who joined the business in 1973, said: "To me he was a father figure. He had a very nice, quiet manner about him and you respected what he said. He was a man of great integrity, a countryman and a family man. He will be a hard act to follow. We all knew him as Mr John."

Mr Cundall, of Sherburn Lodge, had a tough start to his career in farming.

He volunteered with the armed forces towards the end of the Second World War – witnessing VE and VJ Day – but was soon discharged to tend to Sherburn Lodge and his ill father who died two months later. He then faced the great snowstorms of 1947 which blanketed the land until April that year.

But it was his work with Cundalls for which he was best known.

Alongside his brother Harry the pair made a formidable team which would eventually see Cundalls merge with BL Wells & Son of Hull and grow to 18 offices across the whole of East Yorkshire and most of North Yorkshire.

Mr Elwess said: "John was the premier auctioneer of his day in the 1960s and 70s. He was selling 1,000 cattle through Malton Market a day. We now do 100 to 120. He was a man of his era and with the help of his brother they were quite a force to be reckoned with. They built a very good team of people around them and they shared the business with other individuals and other partners and it grew."

In 1987 Wells Cundall was sold to Nationwide, but five years later a partnership led by Mr Cundall and Peter Woodall bought back the agricultural business in Malton and reverted the name to Cundalls. By the time of his death the firm had grown to include new offices in Pickering and York covering North and East Yorkshire.

Even in semi-retirement Mr Cundall remained busy. He worked in partnership with his son Richard, who farms 1,000 acres of arable land at Jacksons Wold, and was employed as a consultant with Cundalls where he was a frequent visitor.

Stephen Edwards, a partner at Cundalls, said: "He would come into this office even now once a week asking how are things and always asking 'anything fresh?' He was terribly interested in what was going on and we would still ask advice and he would be very willing to give it. John was a very sage, wise man."

A "man of many talents," Mr Cundall had a life-long passion for historical artefacts which was sparked when he collected flint as a young boy. Shooting, fishing, photography and, latterly, writing poetry and his memoirs kept him fully occupied.