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The mystery of Thomas Tyler
Hello. My brick wall is Thomas Tyler, a cabinet-maker born in Spitalfields in 1851 (according to census info). Have spent more than two years trying to track down his birth date and his mother's name. On the registrations for his two marriages, his father was also listed as a Thomas, whose gave his occupation in one instance as "retired pugilist," and at another time as "victualler." His son, Thomas, whose vitals I am trying to find, was first married to a widow named Caroline (Kemp) York. She was born in Bethnal Green in 1859 and died in 1897. Thomas and Caroline had at least ten children (but didn't get married until Dec. 1895, when they'd already had most of their kids, and been together 13 years!). Four months after Caroline died in Hoxton Infirmary, Thomas married widower Mary Ann Ramkin Hughes (b. Mar. 1, 1870) and they went on to have five children. In the summer of 1904, his table-making business fell on hard times and the family spent 3 weeks in Shoreditch workhouse. That autumn, he placed three of his sons, Charles, Matthew and George, with the Barnardos agency. Two of the boys were shipped to Canada. On Aug. 18, 1909, Thomas died of a fall in the street. There was a coroner's inquest, with Dr. Wynn Westcott presiding, but the coroner's records have since been destroyed. One other little intriguiing bit of information is that in 1861, according to the census, young Thomas, then 10, was living in Clerkenwell with William and Eleanor Kemp, who were the grandparents of Caroline Kemp, the woman Thomas would eventually marry. Don't know why he was living there. Perhaps his mother had died. Someone in my family believes his father Thomas, the "pugilist," had at one time joined the army and was kicked out after getting into fights. The Kemps were table-makers, so this would seem to be where TT learned his trade. As an adult, he had a factory on Gibraltar Walk. Would be enormously grateful for any scrap of information that might be able to assist me and my friends, Carol and Pat. We have been trying for nearly two years to progress back in time beyond Thomas, but have struck out at every turn. Tracey Tyler.
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