TAYLOR, Michael Angelo (1757-1834), of Whitehall Yard, London

While Taylor’s grandfather, Robert (c.1690-1742), a London stone mason, reportedly died virtually bankrupt, his father, Sir Robert Taylor (1714-88), a sculptor turned architect, whose work included substantial parts of the Bank of England, had amassed a fortune of £180,000 at his death.1M. Binney, Sir Robert Taylor. From rococo to neoclassicism (1984), 22-6; G. Barber, ‘The Taylor Institution’, in M.G. Brock & M.C. Curthoys (ed.), The History of the University of Oxford. Vol. VI. Nineteenth-century Oxford, Part I (1997), 631. Originally intended for his father’s profession, Taylor studied in his office, but instead trained for the law and was called to the bar in 1774.2New Monthly Magazine, xli. 502. He first entered the Commons in 1784, and sat almost continuously for fifty years for various constituencies. The diminutive Taylor was often a figure of fun, not least because of his self-inflicted nickname as the ‘chicken’ of the law, in which form he was caricatured by Gillray.3R. Thorne, ‘Taylor, Michael Angelo’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. Canning in 1794 described him as ‘by far the most ridiculous man in the world’, and he was remembered by John Hobhouse as ‘an incredible coxcomb, but good-natured and not altogether without capacity’.4Harewood MSS, Canning journal, 4 May 1794, cited in HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 340; Creevey papers, ii. 284, cited in HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 373. His London house was a favoured rendezvous for the Whigs for many years, and he was an active member of the pre-Reform Commons, taking a particular interest in reform of the court of chancery and in the paving and lighting of London streets.5Thorne, ‘Taylor, Michael Angelo’; HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 373. The 1817 Metropolitan Paving Act was commonly known as Michael Angelo Taylor’s Act. Captain Gronow recalled that:

in appearance he was one of that sort of persons whom you could not pass in the streets without exclaiming, “Who can that be?” His face blushed with port wine, the purple tints of which, by contrast, caused his white hair to glitter with silvery brightness; he wore leather breeches, top boots, blue coat, white waistcoat, and an unstarched and exquisitely white neckcloth, the whole surmounted by a very broad-brimmed beaver.6R.H. Gronow, Reminiscences of Captain Gronow (2nd edn., 1862), 81.

In 1831 Taylor stood down at Durham city, where he had sat on his wife’s interest from 1800-2 and since 1818, after a belated canvass, his local support having dwindled despite his backing for the reform bill.7HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 373, 377. That September he wrote to Lord Grey, angling for an honour in recognition of his loyal service to the Whig party, and observing that ‘my political life is probably at its close’.8M.A. Taylor to Grey, 22 Sept. 1831, Grey MSS, GRE/B54/7/21.

This did not, however, prove to be the case, for Taylor offered as ‘the reform candidate’ for the venal borough of Sudbury in 1832, with the assistance of his wife’s nephew, Rev. John (‘Jack’) Vane.9The Times, 12 Dec. 1832; HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 377. One of the incumbent MPs, Sir John Benn Walsh, was assured that Taylor was ‘not a very formidable opponent’, although he was said to have made a ‘very spirited good electioneering speech’, during which he voiced his disapproval of the Dutch war, declaring that although he was ‘intimate & on the most friendly terms with ministers’, it did not follow that he was their ‘thick & thin supporter’ on this issue.10NLW, Ormathwaite MSS, FG 1/6, pg. 93 (10 June 1832), pg. 173-4 (7 Dec. 1832). Taylor’s determination to secure the seat was such that he warned before the contest that he would petition against Walsh for bribery (with respect to customary payments to freemen). In the event, however, this did not prove necessary, as Taylor topped the poll.11NLW, Ormathwaite MSS, FG 1/6, pg. 157 (3 Nov. 1832). When Taylor himself was accused of bribery in an electioneering speech by Alexander Baring, Conservative candidate for North Essex, reported in the Chelmsford Chronicle, he took legal action against the newspaper for libel, but dropped the case when a retraction from Baring was forthcoming.12The Times, 12 Jan. 1833, 29 Jan. 1833. Taylor was not, however, averse to cultivating the constituency, providing seven pounds of beef, seven pounds of flour, two pounds of plums and three quarts of beer for each of Sudbury’s poor inhabitants on New Year’s Day, 1834.13A.W. Berry, Early nineteenth century Sudbury (2002), 55.

A ‘moderate and consistent Whig’, Taylor generally supported Grey’s ministry in his final Parliament.14New Monthly Magazine, xli. 502. He opposed the motion for the abolition of sinecures put forward by Joseph Hume (for whom he had refused to poll at the 1832 Middlesex election15Morning Chronicle, 22 Dec. 1832.), 14 Feb. 1833, and divided against repeal of the Septennial Act, 15 May 1834. In his only known speech in this Parliament, he returned to his pet subject of chancery reform, arguing that the court of chancery operated to the ruin of all property, and that its abuses ‘were monstrous; for, in place of being a protection to infants, it absolutely went to rob them of their just rights’, 31 July 1833. He was a natural choice as a member of the select committee, on which officers should be appointed and how much they should be remunerated under the chancery offices regulation bill.16CJ, lxxxviii. 613, 618; PP 1833 (685), xiv. 2. ‘Seriously indisposed’ for several weeks prior to his death at his London home in July 1834, Taylor’s last noteworthy vote appears to have been that against the second reading of the bill for admitting Dissenters to universities, 20 June 1834.17Morning Post, 16 July 1834; HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 377. He strenuously opposed this measure, despite having received the support of Sudbury Dissenters at his election, and having presented a petition from them for the redress of their grievances, 20 Mar. 1833.18Essex Standard, 19 July 1834; Morning Chronicle, 23 Apr. 1833. His last known political comments in public were ‘words of disgust at the course which political events were taking’ – the Irish church question having prompted serious disunity among the Whig leaders – and he believed that Grey should either quit his colleagues in the Cabinet, or dissolve Parliament.19New Monthly Magazine, xli. 502. Although he had not sat continuously since first entering Parliament, Taylor was sometimes referred to as the ‘Father of the House’ after 1832: ‘he is no chicken now’, commented the Morning Post in 1833.20Thorne, ‘Taylor, Michael Angelo’; Morning Post, 22 Feb. 1833. A contemporary who had also entered the house in 1784 and was still sitting in 1834, but had not sat continuously, was Sir Gerard Noel Noel. At the time of his death he was also said to be the senior barrister at Lincoln’s Inn.21Gent. Mag. (1834), ii. 431.

Taylor was buried in the family vault at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London.22Thorne, ‘Taylor, Michael Angelo’. His estate was valued at under £100,000. He bequeathed his racing cups to his fellow MPs William Joseph Denison and Sir Ronald Ferguson, and left a life interest in his London house and his bank stocks to his wife, who died the following January, with reversion to her nephew Vane.23HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 377; Morning Post, 17 Jan. 1835. The house was sold after Vane inherited it: Morning Post, 21 July 1835. Vane, for whom Taylor had previously sought preferment, was appointed by James Abercromby as chaplain to the House of Commons in February 1835.24HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 377; Morning Post, 24 Feb. 1835. Taylor’s will also endeavoured to end a prolonged dispute with Oxford University, to which his father had left the residue of his estate (upon Michael Angelo’s death without issue), in order to erect a building for teaching modern languages. Sir Robert had, however, failed to sign the codicil containing this bequest, and in 1817 Taylor had proposed to settle Oxford’s claim on the estate for £50,000 in Irish currency. This offer reappeared in his will, and in November 1835 Vane made an agreement with Oxford that it would relinquish all claims on the estates of both father and son, in return for £65,000, which funded the construction of the Taylor Institution.25Barber, ‘The Taylor Institution’, 632-3. Taylor is commemorated with a stained glass window in Durham cathedral, dedicated to him by Vane in 1865.26A sketch of Durham for the use of visitors and others (1885), Appendix, pg. xxvii. His correspondence (1809-31) with Earl Grey is held by Durham University Library, and that with Thomas Creevey by the Northumberland Collections Service.27http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P28038.