John Tailby, the son of John & Ruth, was baptised at Braybrooke, on the 9th of November 1748, and he married three times. His first wife was Sarah Tolton by whom he six children: William at Braybrooke, then Sarah, Ruth, John, James and Robert Edward at Desborough. Sarah died and was buried on 2nd August 1779. The following year John married Sarah Burditt, of Rushton, by licence on 13th of March at Desborough, and eight more children were born, including James in 1782, Edward 1784, George 1787 (baptised 24th Sept), Thomas 1788, and Ann 1790. Sarah II was buried on 6th February 1798. John married again to Ann Nursey on 1st December 1799 and they had one son, Joseph baptised on 18th January 1802. Ann was buried on 23rd February 1827.

Following his marriage to Susannah Todd of Irthlingborough, at Rothwell in 1822, George had moved to Rushden by 1827. Joseph had moved to Brigstock by 1851, but by the next census he had joined his half brother at Rushden. George was a wheelwright, and was farming 40 acres of land at Rushden, and his only child, George born 1827, was also working on the farm.

George junior married Sarah Jaques in summer 1866, and his father died in December of that year. Sarah was 14 years younger than George, and bore him 7 children at Rushden: George, Charles, Mary, Clement, Gertrude E, Sarah E, and Gerald T.

George Tailby (b 1868) married Ellen Lamb of Higham Ferrers in 1897. She was the daughter of Thomas & Jane (nee Parker). George and Ellen had 4 children, Nellie, Grace, Brenda, and Muriel, and lived at 123 Higham Road.

George started a sand business alongside the farming, and also founded the Tailby and Putnam business, with Charles Putnam who had come to Rushden from Chesham, Buckinghamshire where he was born in 1867. Clement Tailby (George’s brother) was an assistant in the grocery business.

Charles Putnam married Emma Knight in 1899, the daughter of Samuel Knight, draper, and Sarah his wife. At first they lived at 11 Irchester Road, later moving to ‘Ormidale’ in Victoria Road. They had five children, Charles, Stewart, Ray, Doreen and Marie. (Marie married Dr. Tom Parr of the R.A.M.C., who served at a hospital in India)

In 1915 Charles Putnam bought the company of P Collins & Co, following the deaths of Percy Collins, and Henry Collins. His children Doreen Maud, Stewart Augustus, Frank Raymond and Marie Louise were the company directors, along with their father. The company was re-titled Putnam Ltd. in 1965.

Charles' eldest son, Charles Edward Putnam (born 1902), married Betty Botwright (born 1918) in 1937. Together they ran the Tailby and Putnam shop in Newton Road, Rushden.

The business seems to have started about 1897 at 129 High Street. In about 1903 another shop at 32 Grove Road was opened, and another at 219 Wellingborough Road about 1912. There is no advertising in the trade directories after 1928, although Clement Tailby’s wife Ada (nee Helsdown) is listed trading as a grocer at 21 Midland Road in the 1930s. Clement died in 1951.

The shops closed in the 1960s.