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89 Ainsworth Street

This is the story of the Tyler/Tayler/Taylor family have lived at number 89 for several generations.

Number 89 is one of a pair of terraced houses on the west side of Ainsworth Street.

1881

Richard E. Hardy, Head,  35, Ironmonger’s Valuer’s Assistant, Norwich
Harriet Hardy, Wife,  29, Norwich

The Story of Thomas Tyler and his Family

Pre-Ainsworth Street

Thomas Tyler arrives in Cambridge by 1881, living at 20 Kingston Street. He was born in 1850 in Sible Hedingham in Essex. His wife, Leavnea, was born in 1857 in Erith, North Kent, which is today in the London Borough Of Bexley. Thomas works as a Railway Porter, which suggests he would have worked at Cambridge station for one of the three railway companies serving it at the time, carting people’s luggage to and from trains. With him in 1881, in Kingston Street, are two children, Arthur, aged 2, and Edith, aged 8, along with his niece Emily Wilder, who is listed as a scholar.

1891

In 1891, he has moved to 89 Ainsworth Street, living there with his wife and six children. Now aged 41, Thomas is still working as a railway porter. Both Arthur and Edith are now in education, along with two of his other children, Ernest, aged 7, and Ethel, aged 5. His two youngest children are too young to go to school, George, aged 3, and Edwin, aged 1.

Arthur and Edith move out, and cannot be traced due to the popularity of the name Taylor.

Ernest Taylor, now 17, is working as a Printer’s apprentice, but none of his siblings are in education at this time. There are 3 new members of the Tayler family, Frank, aged 9; Sidney, aged 6; and Hilda, aged 3.

1911 – present

The Tylers are still at number 89 in 1911, and Thomas Tyler, as it is now written, is described as Railway Porter G.N.R, which shows he worked for the Great Northern Railway, who ran services from London Kings Cross to Cambridge, to Ely and to Peterborough. They were also the dominant company on the East Coast route from Kings Cross to Edinburgh.

By 1911, Ernest and George have left home, and Edwin, now 21, has got a job as a provision shop assistant. His younger brother Frank is working as a Clerk for a soap manufacturer, potentially the local soap factory which was off Staffordshire Street on the now demolished Gas Lane. Sidney Tyler, now 16, is a bootmakers apprentice, while Hilda is in education. Ethel has left Cambridge at this point, and has got a job working as a domestic servant, a cook, in Notting Hill in London.

In 1922 Hilda Tyler marries William Aves, and on the 1939 register we see that Hilda Aves is living at number 89 with their daughter Doris Aves, who was born in 1923, and married Frederick Cross in 1951. Frederick would have served as a soldier in the Second World War, which is likely when they met. Doris Cross died in 1994 and today their grandson Stuart Cross still lives in no. 89 Ainsworth Street.

Sources: 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911 UK Census, 1939 Register

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