A. Taylor & Son?

[Pipes505]

Anyone know anything about the London tobacconist “A. Taylor & Son”, that used to be at 73B Victoria St., SW1? I have an old pipe stamped with their name, but I don’t know anything about it. It doesn’t seem very high end to me. But it’s a great little smoker. Just wondering if anyone knows anything about it/them.

 

[kcghost]

Doesn't have a website to look up. I would say they were a tobacco shop and had these made for them as a house brand,

 

[RustiePyles CPG]

@jguss or @sablebrush52 might know something

 

[jguss]

Not too much to say. The business was founded by Abraham Taylor (b ~ 1864, d ?). Abraham emigrated to the UK from Russia (probably in the 1880s) , and together with his wife Bessie had five children, three daughters (Sarah, Leah, and Minnie) and two sons (Emanuel and X?). Not sure of the name of the son who was the "and son" of the tobacco shop (the other son Emanuel was, appropriately enough, a tailor), or exactly when Abraham began to trade as a tobacconist. There's some reason to believe Abraham too was a tailor before entering the tobacco game but that's a bit fuzzy. What I can tell you for sure is that A. Taylor & Son was in business by 1910 at 117 Cable Street in London, and that sometime between 1915 and 1920 the shop relocated to 73B Victoria Street where it remained until the end of the 1960s. More specifically it appears in London phone books through the 1969 edition and doesn't appear in the 1970 or later editions. If the Taylors ever succeeded in expanding the business beyond a single location I've found no sign of it whatsoever. In any case 60+ years is a pretty good run for a small family retail business. My guess is the end came when the son, whoever that was, retired or died (which I guess could be considered a more decisive form of retirement). Anyone else have something to add?

 

[Pipes505]

Not too much to say. The company was founded by Abraham Taylor (b ~ 1864, d ?). Abraham emigrated to the UK from Russia (probably in the 1880s) , and together with his wife Bessie had five children, three daughters (Sarah, Leah, and Minnie) and two sons (Emanuel and X?). Not sure of the name of the son who was the "and son" of the tobacco shop (the other son Emanuel was, appropriately enough, a tailor), or exactly when Abraham began to trade as a tobacconist. There's some reason to believe Abraham too was a tailor before entering the tobacco game but that's a bit fuzzy. What I can tell you for sure is that A. Taylor & Son was in business by 1910 at 117 Cable Street in London, and that sometime between 1915 and 1920 the shop relocated to 73B Victoria Street where it remained until the end of the 1960s. More specifically it appears in London phone books through the 1969 edition and doesn't appear in the 1970 or later editions. If the Taylors ever succeeded in expanding the business beyond a single location I've found no sign of it whatsoever. In any case 60+ years is a pretty good run for a small family retail business. My guess is the end came when the son, whoever that was, retired or died (which I guess could be considered a more decisive form of retirement). Anyone else have something to add?

Great report. Terrific information. Thank you so much. Very kind of you!

 

[warren]

jguess: Well done!

 

[woodsroad]

Not too much to say. The business was founded by Abraham Taylor (b ~ 1864, d ?). Abraham emigrated to the UK from Russia (probably in the 1880s) , and together with his wife Bessie had five children, three daughters (Sarah, Leah, and Minnie) and two sons (Emanuel and X?). Not sure of the name of the son who was the "and son" of the tobacco shop (the other son Emanuel was, appropriately enough, a tailor), or exactly when Abraham began to trade as a tobacconist. There's some reason to believe Abraham too was a tailor before entering the tobacco game but that's a bit fuzzy. What I can tell you for sure is that A. Taylor & Son was in business by 1910 at 117 Cable Street in London, and that sometime between 1915 and 1920 the shop relocated to 73B Victoria Street where it remained until the end of the 1960s. More specifically it appears in London phone books through the 1969 edition and doesn't appear in the 1970 or later editions. If the Taylors ever succeeded in expanding the business beyond a single location I've found no sign of it whatsoever. In any case 60+ years is a pretty good run for a small family retail business. My guess is the end came when the son, whoever that was, retired or died (which I guess could be considered a more decisive form of retirement). Anyone else have something to add?

And we can be pretty sure that their last name wasn't Taylor. I'll bet that they were Jewish.

 

[jguss]

And we can be pretty sure that their last name wasn't Taylor. I'll bet that they were Jewish.

Yes, I'm sure they were Jewish. But the "Taylor" part is almost certainly an occupational surname reflecting the trade followed by Abraham's great or great-great-grandfather. Most Jews in the Russian Empire didn't have last names as such until the last decades of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th. At that times surnames were required by governments for administrative purposes (including notably taxation and conscription). Most of the names adopted reflected places or occupations.

 

[woodsroad]

Thank you, Jon.
My mother's father's family name was Shmeiss. They were tailors. Their shop was in their apartment, a 5th floor walkup with no running water in the city of Zhytomir (west of Kiev). As far as I know, none of them smoked a pipe.

 

[Pipes505]

Half my family were Russian or Ukrainian Jews, and the other half were tailors. I’m loving this pipe more and more! What great information!

 

[condorlover1]

@jguss : Cable Street, London. Not the greatest location to be if you were Jewish and in London during the 1930s! I know for a fact that area was the epicenter of Sir Oswald Mosley's fascist movement before the war. Think small mustaches, leather boots and everyone wearing black to save on their laundry bill or proposing a national balcony building program for making shouty speeches at the masses.

 

[jguss]

@jguss : Cable Street, London. Not the greatest location to be if you were Jewish and in London during the 1930s! I know for a fact that area was the epicenter of Sir Oswald Mosley's fascist movement before the war. Think small mustaches, leather boots and everyone wearing black to save on their laundry bill or proposing a national balcony building program for making shouty speeches at the masses.

Absolutely true, but Taylor presciently decamped from Cable Street and settled in Victoria Street between 1916-1919. Back then Hitler and Mussolini weren’t even a discernible cloud on the horizon.

 

[jguss]

Their shop was in their apartment, a 5th floor walkup with no running water in the city of Zhytomir (west of Kiev).

I think Zhytomir still has a running water problem.

Too soon?

 

[anotherbob]

@jguss : Cable Street, London. Not the greatest location to be if you were Jewish and in London during the 1930s! I know for a fact that area was the epicenter of Sir Oswald Mosley's fascist movement before the war. Think small mustaches, leather boots and everyone wearing black to save on their laundry bill or proposing a national balcony building program for making shouty speeches at the masses.

you mean like this?

 

[condorlover1]

Unfortunately he was not as amusing as Spode from P G Woodhouse.

 

[jaingorenard]

@jguss : Cable Street, London. Not the greatest location to be if you were Jewish and in London during the 1930s! I know for a fact that area was the epicenter of Sir Oswald Mosley's fascist movement before the war. Think small mustaches, leather boots and everyone wearing black to save on their laundry bill or proposing a national balcony building program for making shouty speeches at the masses.

My mother's father was on the rooftops throwing tiles at the fascists at the battle of cable street. He would have been 12 or 13. In the UK it's often claimed by communists and anarchists (who were undoubtedly there), but according to him a lot of the resistance just came from the local population who were predominantly Jewish and Irish. His father had come from Poland about 20 years earlier (his first memory of the UK was Queen Victoria's funeral) and he was a tailor in the east end.

He had left Poland to avoid being used as cannon fodder in the Tsar's army. Jews would be put in the front rank to soak up bullets.

 

[condorlover1]

Cable Street is one of those enduring myths in British politics claimed by the left as the epic 'workers' defending the East End of London. The reality was the Irish and Jewish population had just about enough of Mosley's boys going around acting like they were in Germany. My Fathers life long friend from the army lived in Victoria Park and as a child used to make his pocket money turning on lights and keeping fires lit over the Sabbath for the Jewish neighbors. Sadly the area suffered from a lot of redevelopment both by the Luftwaffe during the war and then 1960s urban planners so that little of the original now remains.

 

[jguss]

He had left Poland to avoid being used as cannon fodder in the Tsar's army. Jews would be put in the front rank to soak up bullets.

My grandfather left the Baltic states in 1911 for exactly the same reason. Plus of course the reality that even without the specter of military service life there wasn’t much fun. As I recall Nicholas II’s advertising campaign was “Come for the pogroms, stay for the conscription”

 

[condorlover1]

@jguss : Brilliant! +100

 

[Merton]

Not too much to say. The business was founded by Abraham Taylor (b ~ 1864, d ?). Abraham emigrated to the UK from Russia (probably in the 1880s) , and together with his wife Bessie had five children, three daughters (Sarah, Leah, and Minnie) and two sons (Emanuel and X?). Not sure of the name of the son who was the "and son" of the tobacco shop (the other son Emanuel was, appropriately enough, a tailor), or exactly when Abraham began to trade as a tobacconist. There's some reason to believe Abraham too was a tailor before entering the tobacco game but that's a bit fuzzy. What I can tell you for sure is that A. Taylor & Son was in business by 1910 at 117 Cable Street in London, and that sometime between 1915 and 1920 the shop relocated to 73B Victoria Street where it remained until the end of the 1960s. More specifically it appears in London phone books through the 1969 edition and doesn't appear in the 1970 or later editions. If the Taylors ever succeeded in expanding the business beyond a single location I've found no sign of it whatsoever. In any case 60+ years is a pretty good run for a small family retail business. My guess is the end came when the son, whoever that was, retired or died (which I guess could be considered a more decisive form of retirement). Anyone else have something to add?

I just have to applaud you for this information. It is one of the many reasons that this forum makes our interest in pipes, tobacco and history fascinating. Thank you!