Jennifer Vye From: David Waymouth [dcrwaymouth@btinternet.com] Sent: 21 May 2012 20:14 To: vyebridge@rmplc.co.uk Subject: The Taylors of Patrixbourne when we spoke you suggested I email the questions I have about the Taylors of Patrixbourne. Now I am back home it strikes me that, in a spirit of mutual cooperation, it might be helpful if I passed on what I have scrambled together so far for your use as you wish. My sources are all indirect - tablets in the church, wikipedia and the like and the odd book. I will keep your contact address and pass on anything new I find - I have benefitted from others work and that is the best way. Yours, David Waymouth The Taylors of Patrixbourne The Taylors are said to have come from whitchurch in Shropshire. In 1694 John, the son of Nathaniel, a barrister, bought Bifrons which had been built by John Bargrave in about 1666. Nathaniel was in the Barebones Parliament during the Commonwealth, known as a ‘radical Puritan lawyer’. He was married to Mary Bridges of Hackney. Their eldest son John(16S5-1729) later described himself as ‘bred to the trade of importing naval stores’ and certainly this seems to have been his main occupation. It evidently brought considerable wealth as, not yet 46, he was able to buy a large house and estate at Patrixbourne. That is not too surprising as william III was continually in war and the programme of naval ship building effectively replaced the entire fleet over 25 years. At the same time as he bought Bifrons he invested £2,666 in the Bank of England, the equivalent today of several million pounds. He not only had naval contracts of £56,666 in 1694-5 but also was trading in Massachusetts, Virginia, west Indies, Europe and Africa at least until 1712. He married Olivia Tempest, (who almost certainly wasn’t a daughter of the Tempest baronet,) in1677. It seems strange to us but Taylor was not only a naval contractor but also on the staff of the Navy Board and an MP for Sandwich. In 1698 he is referred to as ‘bookkeeper to the treasurer of the navy.’and later he is mentioned as ‘accountant’ to the treasurer, Lord Falkland. Also he appears as ‘clerk of the cheque’ to the Earl of Orford when he was treasurer and as ‘the Earl’s creature’. John Taylor died in 1729. Bifrons was already held by Brook Taylor (1685-1731), the eldest of four sons, and John’s will mainly provided for his seven other children. Brook Taylor was one of the great English mathematicians, even being on the Royal Society’s committee vetting Newton’s work. His own work on Differential Calculus was called le principe fondement du calcul differentiel by Lagrange. He wrote a mathematical treatise on perspective which was, is, the basis for perspective to this day. He is not our ancestor but a cousin as he was only survived by a daughter. He had married a girl - against his father’s wishes and was for years estranged. She died not long after giving birth after which he was reconciled in the few years that his father lived on. 1 His brother Rev Herbert Taylor next held Bifrons. Marrying Elizabeth wake he was survived in 1763 by two sons, Herbert and Rev. Edward. Herbert was unmarried and died in 1767 at which point Edward succeeded and rebuilt the house. Bifrons refers to the house’s design of two wings or bays. So at least at this date the family are still well-to-do but how or whether they increased their wealth we do not yet know. There is one possible clue: Colonel Herbert Taylor was Colonel of the 9th west Indian Regiment. That could just be a sinecure while he served the Royal family but might indicate a Caribbean connection. According to recent research they don’t seem to have been slave owners. Rev Edward married Margaret Payler daughter of Rev william Payler of Ileden and had four sons and three daughters. The Paylers can claim descent from william the Conqueror - he was a bastard in every way so it is not something one should boast about. Edward, the eldest son, inherited Bifrons in 1798. Four years earlier, the 19 year old Jane Austen met him in Kent while staying with the Halletts at Higham Place and fell for him. In 1796 she wrote that she had ‘once fondly doated’ on him and now hoped he would marry his cousin Charlotte so that ‘his beautiful dark eyes will then adorn another Generation with all their Purity’ Jane was frequently in Kent as her brother Edward lived west of Canterbury. It is hard to detect whether either Darcy or Knightley was modelled on Edward but it seems possible In fact Edward Taylor married Louisa Beckingham only child of Rev. J C Beckingham. Louisa was the granddaughter of the last Aucher, a Baronet who had lived at the next estate, Higham, before the Hallets bought it. In 1866 Edward was a Captain in the Romney fencible dragoons (Napoleonic war mounted ‘Home Guard’), brother Herbert was a Captain in the army and a.d.c to the Duke of York (The Grand Old Duke of York of nursery rhyme fame who was actually only 28 when he marched his ill-fated army up and down a hill in Holland), brother Brook was private secretary to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Grenvile, and Bridges was a naval officer. As already mentioned their eldest sister Mary Elizabeth had married Edward wilbraham—Bootle, MP, who was to become Lord Skelmersdale. Lt General Sir Herbert Taylor, GCB, GCH having been a.d.c. to the Duke of York was successively Private Secretary (the first to a UK monarch) to George III from 1865, PS to his consort, Queen Charlotte from 1811 when her husband lapsed into permanent lunacy and finally to william IV from 1836 to the King’s death in 1837. He was also an MP for windsor during George IV’s reign, commanded a brigade in Belgium, was sent on a mission to Bernadotte, later King of Sweden, and for a number of years was Ambassador in Berlin. Herbert died in 1839 (GCH = Knight Grand Cross of the Guelphic Order, a Hanoverian Order instituted in 1815 and no longer awarded in Britain after the death of William IV in 1837. Herbert and Brook were both promoted to the Order in 1822. The 2nd Marquess Conyngham was the next after them.) Sir Brook Taylor, GCH , PC (36 December 1776 — 15 October 1846 ) was a British diplomat . He joined the diplomatic service under the patronage of Lord Grenville and was his Private Secretary. Later he was British minister to Cologne and Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) in 1861-6, to Denmark ' in 1867, to wfirttemberg 2 in 1814-26 and to Bavaria in 1826-27. He was minister to Prussia in 1827-39 following his brother, was appointed a GCH in 1822 and sworn into the Privy Council in 1829. He died, unmarried, at Eaton Place , London , on 15 October 1846 . Captain Bridges watkinson Taylor, Royal Navy, born in 1777, went to sea in the Royal Navy in 1792 at 15, saw action in Howe’s Glorious First of June victory against the French in 1794 and again at the Battle of the Nile under Nelson in 1798 in Leander. He was wounded and captured by the French ship Genereux (74 gun), one of only two ships of the line to escape from Aboukir Bay with Villeneuve, when the Leander (se guns and so, roughly, a cruiser) was carrying home the news of Nelson’s victory. Sounds like bad luck, over confidence on her Captain’s part or perhaps she was not 166%: we know her departure from Aboukir was delayed a day or so while Leander repaired her battle damage. The Frenchman would have had about twice the weight of shot in a broadside and could out-range his enemy comfortably. As a result it was some weeks before accurate news of the battle reached London. Pitt knew that Napoleon had landed in Egypt but not that Nelson had won such an overwhelming victory and authority was lamenting the employment of such a young admiral! In 1799 Bridges was promoted to Commander so it is likely that he was repatriated in a prisoner exchange. By mid 1863 he had been promoted again, to Captain. In 1814 Bridges was Captain of the Apollo and had been on operations off Corfu. He was drowned when his boat capsized in Brindisi on the Toe of Italy (actually the Heel!) He was 37 but does not seem to have married. He had been at war for over 26 years. A younger brother, William, also drowned - on the Thames! Edward’s youngest son wilbraham Taylor was born in 1816 and Bifrons was sold in 1820 to the Marchioness Conyngham, George IV’s ‘favourite’. why Edward sold the estate has yet to be explained. wilbraham settled in a large house at Hadley Green. Twenty-one years old when Queen Victoria ascended the throne we don’t know why he became her Gentleman Usher but his uncle had been a.d.c. to her uncle and Private Secretary to two Kings and a Queen so that is probably the ‘interest’. Samuel Morley’s eldest child, Rebekah Hope Morley, married Herbert wilbraham Taylor, second son of wilbraham Taylor of Hadley Hurst, Hadley Green, Bamet. Hadley Hurst, north of Barnet, is a very large and grand house, perhaps Queen Anne, with at least 20 windows facing out, and extensive out-housing. Hadley is where Herbert was born Samuel Morley, MP for Bristol, Nottingham industrialist, London newspaper proprietor and philanthropist, and the Taylors were distant neighbours in Kent but I doubt if that is what fostered contact; more likely it was their common allegiance to evangelical Christian groups. Samuel refused a peerage but a son became Lord Hollenden and another was Liberal Chief whip and later Postmaster General. Another son was also an MP. As yet we know little about the reasons for the adoption of the wilbraham name by some of the Taylors and their move to Hadley. It seems probable that it stems from the fact that 3 wilbraham’s aunt, Mary Taylor, had married a wilbraham—Bootle who became the first Baron Skelmersdale but that does not explain why he chose Hadley rather than one of the many wilbraham-associated places in Cheshire and Lancashire from which his uncle—in-law’s branch derived and where he and Mary and one of her sisters lived. Questions 1. why did Edward Taylor sell Bifrons P 2. was Culpepper an owner ? 3. Do we know anything about the wakes, Paylers and Beckinghams P 4. John Taylor was an importer. Is that what gave the Taylors a German interest or is it just coincidence ? 5 Do we have more dates P