THE TAYLORS OF ONGAR Portrait of an English Family of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Drawn from Family Records by the Great-great Niece of An.P.~ and Jane Taylor. DORIS MARY -ARMITAGE CAMBRIDGE W-. HEFFER & SONS LTD. FIRST EDITION 1939 PRINTED AND BOUND IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE WORKS OF W. HEFFER AND SONS LTD •• CAMBRIDGE. ENGLAND ANN AND JANE TAYLOR BJ' their father, the Rev. Isaac Ta_}'/or of Ongar. Reproduced by permission of· the 1.Vational Portrait Galle1y To MY MoTHER, GRAND-DAUGHTER OF JEMIMA TAYLOR With gratitude to all those me~bers of the Taylor and Gilbert families who have so generously lent me their tr~asures and helped me with suggestions. My thanks are also due to Mr. F. Lingard Ranson for permission to reproduce two of his photographs of Lavenham, and for information about the history of the little town. D. M.A. December, 1938. FOREW-ORD MORE than a hundred years ago an old man sat down to write his memories of a beloved sister. Distinguished son of a family whose name was a household word in English artistic and literary circles of the day, Isaac Taylor of Stanford Rivers, philo­ sopher, man of letters, artist, inventor, wished to leave his record of an age and outlook that he loved. For times were changing : it seemed to him that life was losing its tranquillity; his fellow-beings their sense of values. "The ordinary incidents of an everyday lot," he wrote, ''may be worth the relating when they are of a kind that are characteristic of a gone-by era, and when they serve to give vividness to our conception of the doings and fashions of such an era-a time seventy, eighty, years ago, and of which few vivid recollections are extant." His eldest sister, towards the end of her long life, wrote for her children her own 'treasury of recollec­ tions;' and now to us for whom life has changed beyond all recognition, it may not be without interest to draw from these and other family records a picture of life as lived long ago in the English countryside by THE TAYLORS OF ONGAR. vii CONTENTS PAGE.. FOREWORD . • • Vil ... INTRODUCTION • • • • . • • Xll1 .. SOME WORKS BY THE TAYLOR FAMILY • • XVll THE TAYLORS AND THEIR CIRCLE . • • 1 ANN • • . .. • • 87 JANE • • . • • • • • • 126 ANN AND JANE AT WORK . .. • • 165 A TAYLOR MISCELLANY •• . •• . 179 VALE . • • 237 1938-Two PILGRIMAGES • • .. 239 INDEX .. 246 1X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE FRONTISPIECE-ANN A-ND JANE TAYLOR. From a portrait by their Father, the Rev. Isaac Taylor of Ongar. Reproduced by permis­ sion of the National Portrait Gallery. THE REv. IsAAc TAYLOR OF ONGAR 5 THE FLEMISH WEAVERS' COTTAGES, from a photograph by F. Lingard Ranson . 11 OLD ORFORD, from a pencil sketch by the - Rev. Isaac Taylor . 17 SHILLING STREET, LAVENHA-M. Showing the two Houses of the Taylors . 23 THE SWAN hm. From a photograph by F. Lingard Ranson . • • . 31 ANGEL LANE, COLCHESTER . 37 KING LEAR. By Ann Taylor • • . • • 45 THE CASTLE HousE, ONGAR. From a drawing by Jane Taylor.. 57 IsAAC TAYLOR of Stanford Rivers . 71 THE PEAKED FARM, ONGAR. From a water­ colour drawing by the Rev. Isaac Taylor .. 77 ISAAC TAYLOR. Silhouette . 81 ANN TAYLOR. Silhouette • • 89 JE.i.v!IMA TAYLOR. Silhouette .. • • . 105 X . LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS X1 PAGE MRS. GILBERT AT 73 · .. 115 IsAAc TAYLOR of Stanford Rivers (as an old man) . 121 JANE TAYLOR. Miniature by Isaac Taylor of Stanford Rivers . 129 JANE TAYLOR. Silhouette .. • • 139 MEETING HOUSE AND BURIAL GROUND AT ONGAR • • • • • • • • • . • • 161 A.NN AND JANE TAYLOR. From N.P.G. · portrait. • • 167 STANFORD R.!vERS AND NAVESTOCK CHURCH.. 236 ENGRAVL.~G BY lA...'-""E TAYLOR 180~7 SHORT FAMILY -TREE OF THE TAYLORS OF ONGAR William Taylor=Anne Cooke of Worcester l Isaac Taylor=Sarah Hackshaw Jeffreys b. 1730 I I I I 2 daughters Charles Rev. lsaac=Ann Martin Josiah b. 1756 b. 1759- b. 1761 5 other m. 3 children children died young I I I I I I I Ann= Rev. Joseph Gilbert Jane Isaac (of S. Rivers)=Eliz. Redland Martin= 1Eliz. Venn Jeffreys m. Sophia Mabb Jemima= Thos. Herbert b. 1782 b. 1787 b. 1788 2Sarah Carlill b. 1792 I I I 8 children 11 children I daughter I son 4 childrenI -INTRODUCTION THE TAYLORS THE first known Isaac Taylor, grandfather of Ann and Jane, was the son of a brass-founder in Worcester, and bom early in the reign of George II. He showed an early talent for engraving, and on his father's death, whilst still a youth, came to London from Worcester, paying two shi1Hogs and six pence for leave to walk beside the stage waggon. He entered the cutlery works of Josiah Jeffreys, and also obtained instruction in the newly-imported mystery of copper­ plate engraving. Josiah Jeffreys had married a Miss Hackshaw, and Isaac Taylor married their daughter, Sarah Hackshaw Jeffreys, in 1754. The Hackshaws, or Hawkshaws:> were of Dutch extraction, or at any rate belonged to the Puritan immigration. Mrs. Isaac Taylor's grand-:­ father, Robert Hackshaw, came to England with William ill, and was called the 'Orange Skipper/ having carried dispatches backwards and forwards,. before the Revolution, concealed in his walking-cane. Isaac had engraved crests and other devices at Worcester, and so distinguished himself in this branch of Josiah Jeffreys, work that he now adopted art engraving as bis profession, presently adding the business of an art publisher. He soon won a reputable place among the English artists who, with their sons and pupils, brought line engraving to a pitch of excellence that challenges comparison with the artists of Germany, Italy, ana France. His house was the xiii B . xiv INTRODUCTION resort of several personages of note in art and litera­ ture. Goldsmith,1 the illustrations of whose works are often signed '~saac Taylor,' was frequently there. Bartolozzi, Fuseli and Smirke were among his friends; and he was one of the original founders of the Royal Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain, from which sprang the Royal i\.cademy. The celebrated Mollett was for many years secretary of the Society, Isaac Taylor eventually succeeding him in that office. The new secretary was of some note not only in the world of art but also that of politics, taking an active part in Wilkes' election, whereby he lost more than a thousand pounds. He was comfortably independent, and died in 1807, the tombstone of' Isaac Taylor, Gent,' marking his resting-place in Edmonton burial ground. He had three sons and two daughters. Of the sons Charles was the learned editor of Ca/met' s Dictionary of the Bible, its translation, commentary, and the illustration being the great work of his life. Jie also edited and published several works of art, including the Artists Repository ·five vols., and Oval Plates for Shakespeare. In addition, Charles was an engraver; but his younger and more famous brother speaks of him as 'having artistical feeling, but no delicacy of tool.' He afterwards became librarian to the London Library, the books being kept in his own home at Hatton Garden. He married, and had two sons and a daughter. Isaac became the Reverend Isaac Taylor of Ongar, and Josiah was a publisher of architectural works. The second of the three sons, Isaac, received a regular 1 On one occasion, consulted upon the title of a book with an apology for troubling him on so trifling a matter, he replied, <'The, title! the title, sir, is everythin.g !" INTRODUCTION .xv education as an engraver anq.· .·soon .surpassed· his father. In his ·early twenties·· he executed (for his father) scientific engravings for Chambers's Cyclopadia~ then under Dr. Abraham Rees' editorship; · thereby adding greatly to his. scientific, ·as well as his artistic knowledge. He -also engraved what ·were called 'bookplates,' .chiefly for a small edition of Shakespeare published by his bro~er Charles. About the year 1786 Mr. Alderman·Boydell, the publisher, undertook a series of illustrations . of Shakespeare (and others), engaging for this the first English painters and· en­ gravers. Isaac Taylor,· then a young country artist, called at the great house to. show his work, and was at once engaged· for· an engraving from Opie-"The Death of Rizzio." - · "I remember to have heard him say," records· his eldest daughter, "with what a feeling almost of dismay he contemplated. the undertaking. .· . But his was not the heart to despond. ·what man hath done, man might do. · When the plate ·was finished, beside the sum of 250 guineas, ¢.e payment from Boydell, he received a prize for the best engraving submitted that year to the Adelphi Society for the l?romotion of A:rt; . and .the further sum of ten guineas, together with a small golden palette. \V.ith l9ve and reverence I, his. eldest child, leave on recorq., these . ~ei;nories. _of a Father-no common man! He was at this time Isaac Taylor, Jr. His father, then surviving, was among the first to bring the book engraving of England into a respectable style. He, as far as we know, was the first Isaac Taylor of the family." Boydell's work had a large sale on the Continent until all business was brought to an end by the French war. Mr. Taylor was fortunate in having other . XV! INTRODUCTION resources to fall back upon, and shortly commissioned by Boydell for a five hundred guinea portrait en­ graving, escaped the ruin which ¢.is war brought to hundreds of his fellow artists. An early biographer of the family commen.:s: ''The long association with metal working of both the Jeffreys and Taylor families throws an interesting light on the engraving talent which the first and second Isaac Taylors developed; and the connection with Holland and the Revolution suggests early preferences for Nonconformity." In 1781 Isaac Taylor married Ann Martin, the daughter of one of Mr.