TAYLOR, James Arthur (1817-1889), of Moseley Hall, Worcs. of 10 Park Place, St. James’s, London, Mdx.

Taylor’s family had established itself at Bordesley, Warwickshire, in the early eighteenth century before his great-grandfather, John Taylor (1711-75), who had made his fortune ‘in the button trade’, opened a bank in Birmingham in 1765.1Burke’s Landed Gentry (1863), ii. 1485; Daily News, 12 Oct. 1852. His son, John Taylor (1738-1814) was a partner of Sampson Lloyd, and later established a bank in the City of London. He was high sheriff of Warwickshire, 1786, and at his death left £175,000: W.D. Rubenstein, Who Were The Rich? A biographical directory of British wealth-holders (2009), i. 76-7. Taylor was the eldest son of James Taylor (1783-1852), the senior partner in the banking firm of Taylor and Lloyd’s, who possessed ‘large estates’, served as high sheriff of the county in 1826, and was reputed to be ‘the wealthiest commoner’ in Worcestershire, his income being estimated ‘at not less than 30,000l. per annum’.2Daily News, 12 Oct. 1852; Burke’s Landed Gentry (1863), ii. 1485.

Taylor became a fellow commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1836 but did not graduate.3F. Boase, Modern English Biography, iii. 894. Of no profession, he returned to his father’s estate, where he joined the local yeomanry. In 1810 his aunt, Joanna Taylor, had married Sir Thomas Edward Winnington of Stanford Court, a Whig MP for Worcestershire. Taylor’s father, however, was a strong opponent of ‘the rump of the Whig Administration’. He nominated Horace St. Paul as Conservative candidate for East Worcestershire at the 1835 general election, and chaired the Conservative constituency meeting at Droitwich in June 1837.4Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Jan. 1835, 6 July 1837. At the 1841 general election Taylor was brought forward by his father for East Worcestershire when St. Paul was suddenly compelled to retire because of ill-health.5Morning Post, 28 June 1841.

Holding ‘truly Conservative’ opinions, Taylor declared himself a ‘firm supporter of the constitution in Church and State’, and pledged ‘to do the best I can for the benefit of my Country’. He believed that ‘the present graduated system of duty’ on corn was preferable to ‘the fixed duty’ proposed by the government, which, he contended, would reduce the price of bread and create a depression in ‘the wages of the working classes’.6Dod MS, iii. 1035; Standard, 28 June 1841; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 1 July, 5 Aug. 1841. In spite of being ‘suddenly called upon’, he was able to fend off a challenge from the brother of Lord Foley, who ‘resigned previous to the opening of the poll’.7Dod MS, iii. 1035; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 July 1841.

A silent member, Taylor did not sit on any select committees or introduce any bills, and was an infrequent attender. He did, however, vote on the amendment to the address, which put the Whigs out of office, 27 Aug. 1841. His outstanding characteristic as a representative was a determination to defend the agricultural interest. Although he supported Peel’s sliding scale on corn imports, 9 Mar. 1842, he had voted to reject an amendment critical of the corn laws, 16 Feb., and divided against abolition amendments on at least five occasions during 1842-5. He supported the reintroduction of income tax, 11, 13 Apr. 1842, but was absent from the second and third readings of the bill. With regard to the poor law, Taylor had called in 1841 for ‘the amelioration of the condition of the poor’, and voted with the minority to abolish the poor law commissioners and their assistant commissioners, 27 June, and exempt certain unions from the commission’s control, 19 July 1842. Regarding Ireland, however, Taylor views accorded with the majority of Conservatives and, reflecting perhaps his father’s subsequently expressed hope that ‘distress and famine’ might lead to the spread of ‘Protestant principles’ in Ireland, opposed Lord John Russell’s motion to consider the state of that country, 23 Feb. 1844.8Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 14 Jan. 1847.

Taylor supported the shortening of working hours under the factory bill, 18, 22 Mar. 1844, and voted against the clause which allowed children of eight years of age to work in factories, 6 May. He was, however, one of those who ‘absented themselves’ from the critical division on the ten hours clause, 13 May.9Standard, 17 May 1844. Having promised at his election to support his party’s line on sugar duties, he was absent from the divisions on William Miles’s amendment to Peel’s sugar duties bill, which would have reduced duty on colonial sugar, 14, 17 June 1844, but divided against a subsequent proposal to equalise the duties on foreign and colonial sugar, 24, 26 Feb. 1845. That month he represented the Worcestershire Agricultural Society at a dinner of the Agricultural Protection Society of Great Britain and Ireland.10Standard, 5 Feb. 1845; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 6 Feb. 1845. As a ‘staunch Conservative’, he opposed Peel over the Maynooth College bill, voting against its second and third readings, 18 Apr., 21 May 1845, and supporting the subsequent sunset clause.11Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 5 Aug. 1841. With due consideration for the economy of his native county, he paired against the reduction of duty on foreign hops, 16 Mar. 1846, and breaking with Peel’s ministry over the repeal of the corn laws, divided against the motion for a committee on importation, 27 Feb. 1846, he voted against the repeal bill’s second and third readings, 27 Mar., 15 May 1846.12Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 26 Mar. 1846. He maintained his support for factory reform, voting for the second reading of the regulation bill, 22 May (and would do so again, 17 Feb. 1847), and was one of 71 Protectionists who voted Peel out of office on the second reading of the Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846.13Morning Post, 26 Jan. 1846; Morning Chronicle, 27 June 1846.

In the autumn of 1846 Taylor intimated that he was determined to retire at the next dissolution. Consequently, the interests of ‘the high Tory and Protectionist party’ were ‘summarily sacrificed’ by the East Worcestershire Conservative Association when an agreement was made with the Whigs to share the representation at the next general election.14Morning Post, 14 Dec. 1846. Having publicly disowned this compromise, Taylor took no part in the East Worcestershire by-election of January 1847.15Morning Post, 26 Dec. 1846. However, his father, who also publicly condemned the compact, nominated the Conservative candidate, Captain George Rushout, in the name of the county’s Protectionists.16Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 24 Dec. 1846. Taylor, in turn, insisted that he had not ‘unconditionally resigned’, nor would he, if he could ‘with due consideration to private affairs, save the electorate from the consequences of any compromise affecting their independence’. At Westminster he voted with the minority of Protectionists and Irish Liberals for Lord George Bentinck’s Irish railways bill, 19 Feb. 1847, and divided against the Catholic relief bill, 14 Apr. 1847. However, notwithstanding his devotion to the protectionist case in East Worcestershire, he confirmed his intention to retire at the dissolution on 14 June 1847.17Morning Post, 1 Jan. 1847; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 14 Jan., 17 June 1847.

In 1843 Taylor had married the daughter of an Essex squire, who had served as high sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1813.18Morning Post, 2 June 1843; Burke’s Landed Gentry (1863), ii. 1306. Having renovated his seat at Moor Hill, near Stourport, in 1847, he was bequeathed Strensham Court, Worcestershire, by his uncle, John Taylor in August 1848, and later inherited the bulk of his father’s ‘immense wealth’ upon the latter’s suicide at Brighton in October 1852.19Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 25 Nov. 1847, 17 Aug. 1848, 14 Oct. 1852. Taylor’s step-brother, William Francis Taylor, inherited Moseley Hall. His house at Strensham had been purchased by his grandfather in 1817 and a new house was built in 1824. It was demolished after a fire in 1974: W. Page & J.W. Willis-Bund, A History of the County of Worcester (1924), iv. 208. Although he was mentioned as a possible candidate for by-elections at Bewdley in March 1848, and Kidderminster in August 1849, Taylor appears to have taken no further part in politics.20Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 16 Mar. 1848, 9 Aug. 1849. Instead, he took command of the Evesham Troop of the Worcestershire yeomanry in July 1852, and devoted his attention to his estates.21Morning Chronicle, 4 Feb. 1852; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 29 July 1852. He died very suddenly at his residence in June 1889, after being ‘seized with a fit of apoplexy’. He was buried at Strensham church, his funeral being attended by more than 200 of ‘the tenantry and parishioners’, and was succeeded by his son Arthur James Taylor (1855-1917), an army officer, who inherited Strensham Court and his father’s personalty, valued at £28,036. Portions of Taylor’s settled estates were bequesthed to his widow and two surviving daughters.22Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 22 June, 21 Sept. 1889; The Times, 15 Sept. 1917.