For information on her acting career please see the many obituary notices on the net, this page is simply the genealogical background. For a pedigree back to 1600 go to pedigree
Tate & Lyle Factory Silvertown
The first record we have is of Samuel Tyzack around 1600 in Newcastle. He was probably the son of John Tyzack and Mary bungar who lived at Kirdford. No record exists of his birth however because the local parish register says that the then vicar, Thomas, was very remiss! This was time when Sir Robert Mansell had been granted the monopoly by James I to melt glass using Coal. As a result forest glassmakers at Kirdford were called before the Privy Council for continuing to use wood. Samuel had to go the Newcastle and be employed by Sir Robert to make glass in Sir Robert's glassworks there. Samuel had a son whom he called Robert, probably after his employer. Two other generations followed with the same names. We then have a Zachariah who married Ann Kemp, followed by a William who appears to have moved to King's Lynn. In 1799 a son Zachariah was born who in turn had a son William born in 1826 who was Margaret's Great Grandfather. He married Hannah Marrin and was an Army Farrier working at Aldershot. When he retired he settled in West Ham where the family was based for some years. When he retired the census said he was a steam boiler attendant but it fails to say at which company.
Two children were born at Aldershot but the Grandfather William Joseph was born at Fareham. This William must have been lucky because his brother, Albert Edward Tyzack was killed in 1917 in the great TNT explosion at Silvertown.
Albert was a packer but we do not know whether he lived in one of the many houses demolished by the blast or worked in a nearby factory or even at Brunner Mond where the explosion occured.
Silvertown was beyond the part of London governed by the Metropolitan Building Act (1843), which controlled the setting up of noxious industries. As a result, many factories were established in Silvertown. Dangerous and unpleasant products were handled and made, such as caustic soda, sulphuric acid, manure, creosote and petroleum. Between the docks, railway lines and industrial premises, workers lived in rows of small densely packed terrace houses. It was not a particularly healthy place to live.
Grandfather William Joseph worked for Tate & Lyle as well as Margaret's father Thomas Edward. Lyle's book " The Plaistow Story, by Oliver Lyle, Tate & Lyle Ltd, 1960." Describes William as a Senior Waterman having two brother's who were also formen there, probably Zachariah and Harry, with four sons and four daughter's who worked there. Yet another Tyzack forman was Bob! He was Zachariah's son. Bob was foreman of the syrup shed at Lyle's Plaistow Wharf. Margaret's dad, Thomas, she said, was also a foreman there.
Margaret married mathematician Alan Stephenson in 1958 and together they had one son, Matthew. She died on 25 June 2011 after a short illness.
Whatever would Tate & Lyle's have done without the Tyzacks?