No. 18 Kaye & Shaw: a SlawitSHOP! research profile

(with unanswered questions). 

The first clue we had as to the occupancy of No.18 Carr Lane was from the 1936 Kelly’s Business Directory (fortuitously discovered in the basement of the local Antiques Warehouse by one of our researchers).  No. 18’s listing reads: Mrs A Kaye, shopkeeper, Kaye & Shaw, TN 91.

‘TN’ stands for ‘telephone number’. Kaye and Shaw had telephone number, Slaithwaite 91, seemingly indicating they had the 91st phone line in the village.

In 1936 there were no direct calls. Picking up the phone connected you to the telephone exchange who would put you through. Telephones were still a novelty so we know that whoever Kaye and Shaw were, they weren’t just running a little back-street shop – they had paid for the luxury of a phone line that most people didn’t have.

Armed with a name, we searched the property deeds at the West Yorkshire Archives in Wakefield. Success!

On 19th May 1927,  Alice Helen Kaye bought No. 18, Carr Lane. This makes her amongst the first to buy a parade shop. The deeds record that she was married to Mr Benjamin Kaye and lived in Thongsbridge but the shop is hers and not the property of her husband. Unusual. So why, in 1927, would a married woman, living six miles away, buy a shop in Slaithwaite?

Kelly’s Directory of the West Riding Directory also lists the Kaye’s family home (‘Muslin Hall’, Thongsbridge) under the Private Residence section, which was preserved for those who were notable and wealthy. A profile is emerging and we assume we will discover who ‘Shaw’ is along the way. 

The other thing that neither the deeds or Kelly’s directory tell us is the one thing we really want to know:

What did Kaye & Shaw actually sell?

No description of “grocer” or “confectioner” as in with other premises, just name, number and
“shopkeeper”. More investigation needs to be done. 

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The 1921 Census: Follow the Money.

From the deeds we know that on 10 May 1927, Mrs Alice Helen Kaye bought No. 18 for £1200 – a serious sum of money at the time. She’s listed simply as “shopkeeper”, which hints at a general goods store, but doesn’t pin anything down.

Alice was not living above the shop, leaving this and No.13 the only uninhabited flats in the parade. We went to the census records to discover more about her family. 

The census records have been a source of fascinating data for the SlawitSHOP! Project. They are released for public consumption 100 years after they have been compiled, so we had access to the last available census of 1921 (sadly, the 1931 census records were destroyed in a blaze and a census was not taken in 1941, therefore historians will have to wait another 20 plus years for the 1951 census).

The census confirmed what we had found on the shop deeds and revealed further intriguing detail.

Alice, aged 42, lived in  “Muslin Hall”, was a seven-bedroom house in which she lived with her husband, three sons (including ten-year-old Maurice, of whom we will hear more later) a boarder and a live-in servant. They were comfortable, respectable and already well-established. So where has the money come from? Benjamin Kaye was listed as a ‘Scribbling Engineer’  in Albion Mills, which (whilst being a position of some authority) didn’t seem enough to provide them with such a house. A search in the archives at Meltham Root Cellar reveals Alice’s father, Mr Lancaster, was head of the firm Messrs J Lancaster & Sons Ltd, dyers and finishers, Lower Mytholmbridge Mills.  Now we have a very wealthy man in Alice’s life. A further online search of the British Newspaper Archives provides us with Mr Lancaster’s obituary in 1935, stating:

 “The Holme Valley lost one of its most respected residents and greatest public figures.”

So we now have:

• A prosperous couple at Muslin Hall
  
• Alice buying a shop in Slaithwaite at the considerable age of 48
  
• A business called “Kaye & Shaw” in Kelly’s directory, with a phone line
  
• But still no idea what was on the shelves (or who Shaw was)
  

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The electoral register puzzle

Having gleaned all we can from the census, we turn to electoral rolls, taken every year.  Sadly, not everyone registers to vote or records their details, so the rolls can be hit and miss. In the case of no.18,  they just reveal more mystery and anomalies. But that makes the story more interesting!

• In 1932, Alice appears on the roll at No. 18, as the business owner (her abode is still Muslin Hall).
  
• By 1933, the name beside No. 18 is Maurice Kaye, Alice and Ben’s youngest son, (abode Muslin Hall). He has turned 21 and clearly not followed his older brothers and father into Albion Mills. Perhaps it was time for Alice to retire and hand over the shop keys. Perhaps she had her youngest son in mind all along. Was there a reason Maurice wasn’t suitable for the mill work that ran in the family? 

And yet, remember, in the 1936 Kelly’s directory we are back to Alice Kaye’s name against the business despite the electoral registers consistently listing Maurice as having the business on Carr Lane. 

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Jump to 1939: two addresses, one Maurice

By jumping between census records (including pre 1921 censuses) electoral rolls, births, deaths and marriage certificates, we have built a profile of the family. But dates can only tell us so much. The more we know, it seems, the more we don’t know. 

Curiously, In the years 1934 to 1937 Maurice is on the electoral roll at both 18 Carr Lane and 16 New Mill Road, Thongsbridge (the address of Muslin Hall). Why? It is entirely possible that he had set himself up with a nice little bachelor pad above his shop in Slawit, returning to the family home for a decent cooked meal. 

In the summer of 1936, Maurice married Amy France, a girl he had first seen down by the canal in Slawit  – or that’s what we like to think.  Amy was born and brought up just a few houses down on Carr Lane and all the time we were looking for Maurice we didn’t notice that her name was on the same page on the electoral roll. Very sweet. 

The electoral register of 1937 has Maurice still living in his childhood home, ‘Muslin Hall’  as well as no.18 but there is no trace of his new wife, Amy. 

For 1938 we can find no record of Maurice or Amy. They vanish. 

But – hurrah! – in 1939, they appear again:  Maurice and Alice Kaye, abode, 18 Carr Lane (electoral roll).

This is where it gets (even more) weird. 

War had broken out across Europe,  and in 1939 the British government wanted a record of who and where everyone was and so The National Register was compiled on 29 September 1939.  

In this, Maurice and Amy are in Morecambe, at 38 Bold Street. Maurice is listed there as a Master Baker, Amy ‘house duties’, and also present is Thomasina Hill, a baker and confectioner. 

Of course we couldn’t be sure if these were ‘our’ Kayes. Family history research has a nasty habit of taking you down the wrong track when a surprising amount of people have the same names. 

To recap:  in 1939 Maurice Kaye appears in Slaithwaite and in Morecambe, already firmly established as a baker – which was handy as bread-baking would become a reserved occupation for the making of  the ‘National Loaf’ and thus Maurice could not be conscripted to the forces. 

Of course, the electoral register and the National register are taken at different times of year  – the couple could have moved in between times – but we do know Maurice has previous form with being in two places at the same time! 

With no more elections till after the war and no 1941 census, this is where we lose the Kaye’s. 

Until…

Towards the end of our research, we discovered an obituary in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, which informs of the sudden death of Mrs A.H. Kaye who was living with her youngest son, Maurice, on Bond Street, Morecambe. 

They were ‘our’ Kayes! 

And we get a little insight into Alice’s life. The obit tells us that Alice was a keen golfer; captain of the Marsden and Meltham Clubs and had won the Eastwood Cup in the 1930s.  Alice Helen Kaye died in Morecambe on 2nd May, 1950, aged seventy-two. 

Just one more thing to throw into the mix is the passing of Alice’s husband and Maurice’s father, Benjamin, in March of 1939. This could be relevant to the development of the shop on Carr Lane, as explained in this possible sequence of events:

• Maurice and Amy moved to Morecambe after their marriage in 1936 for Maurice to learn a new trade.  
• He returned to Yorkshire after his father’s death in March 1939 to support his mother at the shop. 
• Or he may have moved back and forth for a while, making alterations to No. 18 and installing the first ovens that would bake Slawit’s bread for decades to come.

The paperwork doesn’t tell us. It just gives us two overlapping snapshots of the same man’s life and the possible origins of the bakery that records tell us was there from the 1940s to the 2020s. 

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The elephant in the room.

We have:

• Plenty of documentation on the Kayes – marriages, addresses, deaths.
  
• A clear ownership trail for Alice.
  
• Electoral register entries for Maurice and the rest of the family.

But who was the “Shaw” in Kaye & Shaw?

Further digging and the best candidate comes from within the family:

• Alice’s older brother-in-law, John Richard Kaye (born 1873), married an American, Adeline Jeanette Shaw from New York, in 1901. The same year that Alice married Benjamin Kaye.
  
• Both the Kayes and the Shaws were well-off families.

So we have a very plausible storyline:

• Two well-to-do women – Alice Kaye and her American sister-in-law Adeline Shaw – join forces to buy a shop.
  
• It gives them a business interest beyond the home, and perhaps a future base for young Maurice, who was 17 when the shop was bought.
  
• The name “Kaye & Shaw” reflects that partnership.

It is, however, just a theory. And we still don’t know what they sold!

If you have family memories, old photos, shop receipts, or stories about Kaye & Shaw or the early bakery at No. 18, we’d love to hear from you. You might be holding the missing clue that finally tells us:

• who Shaw was
  
• what Kaye & Shaw sold
  

and whether Maurice’s baking journey really did begin on Carr Lane.

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What we do know for certain and an invitation.

Here’s the firm ground under our feet:

• 1910 Alice Lancaster marries Benjamin Shaw 
• 1910 Adeline Shaw marries Richard Kaye
• Alice Lancaster is the only daughter of respected business owner, James Lancaster. 
• 10 May 1927 – Alice Helen Kaye buys No. 18 Carr Lane for £1200, listed as shopkeeper.
• The Kaye family home is Muslin Hall, Thongsbridge (16 Muslin Hall / 16 New Mill Road), a large house with at least one servant.
• Kelly’s Directory 1936 – Kaye & Shaw at No. 18, with telephone number 91, and Muslin Hall also listed, marking the family as socially prominent.
• 1932 to 1937 electoral registers – Alice and later Maurice appear under No. 18, but the family’s abode remains Muslin Hall.
• 1939 National Register – Maurice and Amy in Morecambe, he a Master Baker, with fellow baker Thomasina Hill.
• Ben Kaye dies in Huddersfield in March1939.
• Alice dies in Morecambe in 1950

No. 18 continues as a bakery/sandwich shop until 2025.