David Tilbury told me in 1999 that a relative, Jim Tilbury,¹ had been walking around in London's St Marylebone churchyard in the rain, in about 1935, when he came upon a large flat stone with a lot of Tilbury names on it - and asked if I was able to find it. My enquiries revealed that the stone had since been removed but, at Westminster Archives, a book was found which listed the monumental inscriptions from St. Marylebone Churchyard.² The recorded remains of the inscriptions on two of the memorial stones were:-

 15. In memory of  /  EDWARD TILBURY Junr  / of High Street  /  son of  EDWARD  
     and MARGARET SUSANNA TILBURY / who died 10th  July 1831 /  aged 23 years   
     Also of  MARGARET SUSANNA TILBURY /  sister of the above  /  who departed 
     this life [   ] April  /  18[    ] in the 27 year of her age  /  Also of /  
     Mrs Ann TILBURY wife of EDWARD TILBURY Senr  /  died 23rd Nov 18[?3]2  /  
     [     ] year of her age  /  Also of EDWARD TILBURY Esq  /  who died [     ] 
     February 1859 / aged [      ]  /  He was husband of the above  /  
     Mrs ANN TILBURY  /  and father of EDWARD  /  and MARGARET SUSANNA  /   
     by his former wife  /  MARGARET SUSANNA TILBURY  /

 16. [12 lines illegible]  /  MARGARET SUSANNA TILBURY  /  [     ] of the above 
     named  /  [             ]  /  [     ] of High Street  /  [5 lines illegible]  
     /  [    ] THOMAS  [? DYSON or ENSON]  /  [2 lines illegible]  /  [         ] 
     ISABELLA [? DYSON or ENSON] / [?] wife of the above named / [rest illegible] 

So who were these Tilburys and Dysons or Ensons? Where did they live? What did they do? Were any of them related to me? These were some of the questions that set me on the trail of Edward Tilbury and his family, the Ensors and the Tarners.

Edward, son of Joseph and Sarah Tilbury of St. Marylebone, Middlesex, was born on 14th November 1773 and christened on the 28th November of that year at St Marylebone Parish Church ³. He was apprenticed as a carpenter to Edward Gray ⁴ on 25 July 1787. and this, regrettably, is all I currently know about his early life.

In the 1810's a house (right) was built at Patriot Place, Brighton which became the country home of Edward and his family and to which he eventually retired. I believe that Edward played a major role in the design and construction of this building, now grade II listed, and possibly the adjoining terrace of houses, though the only evidence so far discovered ⁵ claims otherwise. Following Edward's death, Patriot Place was renamed Tilbury Place and remains so to this day.

Edward was shown in London trade directories of 1830-1850 variously as a builder and surveyor and owner of a storage warehouse. His addresses were given as 35 and 49 High Street, Marylebone.

In his book,⁶ Gordon Mackenzie wrote:-
'The first Lord of the Manor was Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. He acquired the property through his wife, Henrietta, daughter of the extremely wealthy Duke of Newcastle. Harley embarked about 1715 on a very ambitious building scheme to produce a fashionable residential district 'suitable for aristocracy beginning to take an interest in town houses.......' Harley was famed as a collector of books and manuscripts and now the Harleian Manuscripts are amongst the earliest splendours of the British Museum Library. He had a building constructed to house his collection on the opposite side of the High Street from the Manor House. It later became a girls' school known as Oxford House. Amongst its pupils was 'Perdita' Robinson, one of the first mistresses of the Prince Regent, later George IV. In a later incarnation the building became Tilbury's furniture repository and survived into the early 1900's as 35 High Street, Marylebone'

The following quotation ⁷ suggests a family relationship between Edward and John Tilbury, the carriage builder:-
'A little beyond the top of upper Baker Street on the way to St. John's Wood is the warehouse of Messrs. Tilbury for storing furniture etc. The name of Tilbury is and will long be known in London on account of the fashionable carriage invented by the Messrs. Tilbury's grandfather in the days of the Regency and called a Tilbury, which was succeeded by the Stanhope. Each had its day, and both have been largely superseded by the modern cabriolet, though now and then the light and airy Tilbury reasserts its existence in the London parks.'

This former church school in St. Marylebone, a Listed building dating from 1824, is, according to H. V. Pevsner the architectural critic, "probably the work of Edward Tilbury". The original roof and fourth floor have since been removed and repairs made to the third floor wall as a possible consequence of WW2 bomb damage but the remaining building is well maintained by its present occupier, The St. John Ambulance Association.

Edward died at his Brighton home in 1859 but was interred at the Parish church of St. Mary, Marylebone, his burial being the only one recorded there in that year.

I am indebted to Mr J. A. Taylor who not only took this photograph but made enquiries of a former employee of the school which revealed that the building had been flooded some years ago and that documents, possibly relating to the building's origins, had been destroyed by a church official.

Notes.

1. Probably James Tilbury, a son of Edward and Esther Tilbury of Southampton, former Winchester Cathedral chorister and World traveller.
2. The Monumental Inscriptions of St. Marylebone Parish Chapel and Churchyard and Parish Church. Transcribed and indexed by M. L. Bierbrier and L. Collins. 1978.
3. IGI batch number C035244. For further information on St. Marylebone Parish Church (St. Mary by the Bourne) see www.stmarylebone.org.uk/
4. From the Society of Genealogists publication 'London Apprentices Vol.2., Tylers and Bricklayers Company'
5. The Encyclopedia of Brighton by Timothy Carder truthfully states that the house, formerly St. Johns Lodge, 'was for many years the home of merchant Edwin Tarner'. English Heritage in their document TQ3104SE (1971),claim Carder's work as their source but refer to the house as having been 'built for the wealthy merchant Edwin Tarner'. As Edwin was not born until 1808 and doesn't appear to have been connected to the Tilbury family until the 1830's, the latter statement is regarded with considerable suspicion.
6. Marylebone-great city North of Oxford Street. Gordon Mackenzie 1972.
7. Walter Thornbury's 'Old and New London', volume 5., Chapter 20., p.262, published 1872.

Top