Introduction

Biography

John was the son of Ri­chard Tay­lor of Nor­wich, England, and grand­son of Dr. John Tay­lor (1694–1761), the em­i­nent He­brew schol­ar, who was for ma­ny years min­is­ter of the Oc­ta­gon Cha­pel, Nor­wich, and af­ter­wards Di­vi­ni­ty tu­tor at the War­ring­ton Aca­de­my.

Young Tay­lor, af­ter serv­ing his ap­pren­tice­ship in his home town, worked for two years in a bank­ing house in Lon­don, at which time he was an oc­ca­sion­al po­et­ic­al con­tri­bu­tor to the Morn­ing Chro­ni­cle.

In 1773, he re­turned to Nor­wich, where he spent the rest of his life, first as a ma­nu­fac­tur­er, and af­ter­wards as a wool and yarn fac­tor.

For near­ly 50 years he was a de­acon at the Oc­ta­gon Cha­pel. At the time of the French Re­vo­lu­tion he joined in the sup­port of The Ca­bi­net, a pe­ri­od­i­cal brought out by the Li­ber­als of Nor­wich, in con­junc­tion with Dr. En­field, Will­iam Tay­lor, Ame­lia Opie, and oth­ers. As a po­et of the ol­den time, he con­trib­ut­ed five po­ems there­to.

Works

These, and oth­er po­li­tic­al songs and po­ems re­lat­ing to fa­mi­ly ev­ents, to­ge­ther with 50 hymns, were col­lect­ed in Hymns and Mis­cel­la­ne­ous Po­ems, Re­print­ed for Pri­vate Dis­tri­bu­tion, 1863, with a Me­moir tak­en from the Month­ly Re­po­si­to­ry of Sep­tem­ber 1826, by his son, Ed­ward Tay­lor, then Gresh­am Pro­fess­or of Mu­sic.

An ear­lier and less com­plete edi­tion, con­tain­ing 43 hymns, he had him­self caused to be print­ed by his sons, Ri­chard and Ar­thur Tay­lor, Lon­don, 1818.