The Tyssen-Amherst Family

Hackney was once part of Stepney and several streets have been named after this family. They had considerable influence in the area at one time.

Tyssen Road, Tyssen Street, Amhurst Park, Amherst Road, Amhurst Passage, Amhurst Terrace. Apart from streets named after them many streets in Hackney have names connected to places in Norfolk where the family once lived. Foulden, Ickburgh, Northwold, Cranwich, Sandringham, Bodney, Narford, Kenninghall, Mundford and Denver to name but a few.

The earliest Tyssen in England, Francis, was a naturalised merchant from Flushing in Zeeland. In 1685 he purchased the Shacklewell estate of the Rowe family (who had fallen on hard times.) Francis lived at the Manor House on Shacklewell Green close to Mare Street. Francis Tyssen acquired land at Fouldon in western Norfolk, south-east of Downham Market.

By about 1830 the Tyssens estate was the largest estate in Hackney covering an area around Hackney Downs and Shacklewell Lane, along Kingsland High Road to Stamford Hill and across Upper Clapton to the Lea.

The use of the name Amherst came from an earlier daughter of the family, Mary, (great great grand-daughter of Francis, marrying Captain John Amherst R.N in Rochester, Kent in 1766.)

Six generations after Francis of 1685 W G Daniel-Tyssen was succeeded by his eldest son William George Tyssen Daniel-Tyssen. In 1852 he took the name Tyssen-Amhurst, changing the name from Amherst to Amhurst. He lived mainly at Fouldon Hall and married Mary Fountaine of Narford Hall, near Swaffham, Norfolk.

The first Lord Amherst stocked a purpose built museum of Egyptian and other antiquities and a library at Didlington. Howard Carter, the Egyptologist, (1874-1939) was the son of an artist whose patron was Lord Amhurst. Howard had been born in Kensington, London but being a sickly child lived with two aunts in a family cottage at Swaffham near Didlington.

In his early years Carter accompanied his father to Didlington Hall where he was introduced to Lord Amhurst's Egyptian collection. Afterward Amhurst employed Howard who, in later years discovered Tutankhamun's tomb. Misfortune struck the family early in the 20th century because Lord Amhurst left the management of his affairs to a City solicitor upon whose death was found to have misappropriated a quarter of a million pounds.

The estates in Norfolk were sold in 1915 as were the treasures at Didlington which included seventeen works by Caxton which were bought by J Pierpont Morgan, the American financier.