TAYLOR, Peter Alfred (1819-1891), of Aubrey House, Notting Hill, Mdx.

Born into the Courtauld business dynasty, Taylor was one of a younger generation of Radicals sympathetic to the demands of labour, who championed European liberal nationalism and were firm believers in international arbitration.1M. Finn, After Chartism: class and nation in English radical politics, 1848-1874 (1993), 224-5. His grandfather, William Taylor (1755-1843), had limited success as a silk, and later, a tin manufacturer, but married Catherine, the eldest daughter of Samuel Courtauld I (1720-65), whose father, the Huguenot refugee Augustin, had established the family as goldsmiths in London.2H. Clifford, ‘Courtauld family (per. 1708–1780)’, www.oxforddnb.com; P.A. Taylor, Some account of the Taylor family, (2 vols., 1875), ii. 586-92. Taylor’s father and namesake married his first cousin Catherine, the daughter of George Courtauld (1761-1823), another child of Samuel I.3A. Rushton, ‘Taylor, Peter Alfred (1819-1891)’, www.oxforddnb.com; Taylor, Taylor family, ii. 689-92. Bound by Unitarianism, radical politics, and blood, Peter Alfred Taylor I, Samuel (1793-1881) and George Courtauld (1802-61) established a silk manufacturing business in 1828 that prospered, in large part because of the demand for black mourning crape.4D. Coleman, Courtaulds: an economic and social history, (3 vols., 1969-80), i. 203-6, 224. As well as being first cousins, Peter Alfred Taylor I was married to George and Samuel’s sister, and the latter was married to Taylor’s sister Ellen: D. Coleman, ‘Courtauld, Samuel (1793-1881)’, www.oxforddnb.com. Taylor joined the firm in the late 1830s, and got his first taste of politics through lecturing for the Anti-Corn Law League, which his father strongly supported.5Coleman, Courtaulds, i. 224-6. He became a partner in Samuel Courtauld and Co. in 1850 and usually drew £5,000 annually from the firm.6Ibid., 226-7.

From the mid-1840s, Taylor was an active supporter of continental nationalism, and with his wife, the Unitarian feminist Clementia (1810-1908), successive London residences became salons for British and European radicals.7F. Boase, Modern English Biography (1901), iii. 898-9; Finn, After Chartism, 160, 166-7, 208, 214; Rushton, ‘Taylor’; idem, ‘Clementia Taylor’, Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, 20 (1991), 62-8. In 1859 Taylor contested Newcastle-upon-Tyne as a third Liberal but was heavily defeated by the incumbents.8McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 211. His nomination speech was notable for its advocacy of an interventionist foreign policy in favour of liberal nationalist movements, particularly in Poland, Hungary and Italy.9Newcastle Courant, 6 May 1859. Invited by local Radicals to contest Leicester at a by-election, 7 Feb. 1861, Taylor and a moderate Liberal were easily defeated by a Conservative.10The Times, 6 Feb. 1861. A rapprochement between the two Liberal factions led to Taylor being returned unopposed when the next vacancy for the constituency occurred, 17 Feb. 1862.11VCH Leics., iv. 222-3; The Times, 18 Feb. 1862.

At Westminster, Taylor’s speeches were infrequent, fairly short, and rather urgent, often referring to opinion ‘out of doors’, but his main contributions in the chamber were through questions. He was a strong supporter of the North in the American Civil War, not only because of his opposition to slavery, but because of his belief that it was the legitimate government. Recognising the Confederacy would not only violate international law, Taylor warned the House, but would also give the United States government ‘a just casus belli against England’.12Hansard, 10 July 1863, vol. 172, cc. 569-71 (at 570). Later speeches drew attention to possible breaches of British neutrality in favour of the South, and reflected the popular support for the North outside Parliament.13Hansard, 4 Mar. 1864, vol. 173, cc. 1488-90; ibid., 28 July 1864, vol. 176, cc. 2179-80. Taylor’s commitment to political reform was expressed in votes for the ballot, the county franchise bill of 1864, and the borough franchise bills of 1864 and 1865.14House of Commons Division Lists, 1863 session, 16 June 1863; ibid., 13 Apr. 1864, 11 May 1864, 21 June 1864; ibid., 1865 session, 8 May 1865.

At the 1865 general election Taylor was re-elected in second place behind another Liberal and retired from Courtaulds, withdrawing his capital of £72,000 to focus on politics.15Coleman, Courtaulds, i. 227; Derby Mercury, 19 July 1865; VCH Leics., iv. 223-24. In 1866 he unsuccessfully moved for the abolition of flogging in the army and navy, protesting that ‘it was a libel on the English character’ to claim that discipline could only be maintained by the ‘lash’.16Hansard, 8, 9 Mar. 1866, vol. 181, cc. 1783-4, 1787, 1881, 1883 (at 1881). His amendments to the marine mutiny and mutiny bills were defeated by majorities of 51-21 and 56-17 respectively. That same year he welcomed the Liberal government’s reform proposals, although he would have preferred them to have been accompanied by a measure of redistribution.17Hansard, 9 Feb. 1866, vol. 181, cc. 332-3; ibid., 27 Apr. 1866, vol. 183, cc. 65-8 (at 67). Taylor also fought to preserve the right of the Reform League, of which he was a patron, to hold public meetings in Hyde Park.18Finn, After Chartism, 237-8. He repeatedly questioned the home secretary Spencer Walpole on the issue, and offered unyielding opposition to the Conservative government’s bill to limit freedom of assembly in royal parks.19Hansard, 19 July 1866, vol. 184, cc. 1073-5; ibid., 7 Aug. 1866, vol. 184, cc. 2133-4; ibid., 3 May 1867, vol. 186, cc. 1983-5; ibid., 20 May 1867, vol. 187, c.778; ibid., 16, 22 July 1867, vol. 188, cc. 1626, 1453-6, 1487; ibid., 15 Aug. 1867, vol. 189, cc. 1586-8. In the debates on the 1867 representation of the people bill, Taylor supported various enfranchising clauses, including female suffrage, the diminution of small boroughs, and the granting of extra representation to large towns and cities.20House of Commons Division Lists, 1867-68 session, 12 Apr. 1867, 2, 13, 20, 31 May 1867; 3, 17 June 1867; 1 July 1867. He also proposed to enfranchise lodgers who changed residence, but his motion was negatived after Disraeli and Gladstone spoke against it.21Hansard, 12 July 1867, vol. 188, cc. 1457-8.

Re-elected at the 1868 general election, the following year, the Taylors converted their Notting Hill home, Aubrey House, into an adult education institution, with a library, but closed it four years later, and moved to Brighton.22Rushton, ‘Clementia Taylor’, 65. Between 1873 and 1878 Taylor was proprietor of the Examiner and he published a number of his parliamentary speeches in the same decade, including those on flogging and the game laws.23S. Koss, The rise and fall of the political press (1984-86), i. 191; Rushton, ‘Taylor’; P.A. Taylor: Payment of members (1870); Speeches … in the House of Commons on the game laws (1873); Opening of museums, libraries, etc., on Sundays (1874); The “cat” speech … in the House of Common (1875); Compulsory vaccination (1879); Personal rights (1884). As a spokesman for a variety of reforming causes including opposition to the Contagious Diseases Acts and to compulsory vaccination, Taylor was described as ‘the very embodiment of faddism’.24Leicester Daily Post, 22 Dec. 1891, qu. by Rushton, ‘Taylor’. His politics mellowed after his retirement, 20 June 1884, and he became a Liberal Unionist in 1886.25Coleman, Courtaulds, i. 228; The Times, 21 Dec. 1891. He died five years later, leaving no heirs, but was survived by his wife.