George Watson Taylor (née Watson)

Husband of Anna Susannah Taylor, niece of Simon Taylor of Jamaica (q.v.), from whom she indirectly inherited a fortune which her husband squandered. On the death of her brother Simon Richard Brissett Taylor (q.v.), the Watson Taylors were reported to have inherited '£500,000 in the funds of this country for the purchase of an estate', and were rumoured to be looking at Houghton, Sir Robert Walpole's Norfolk estate.

1. An MP; father of Simon Watson Taylor, in turn a Liberal MP in the 1850s and member of the Eyre Defence Fund committee in 1866-67.

2. Watson Taylor was among other things a picture collector; there are 3 different portraits of him in the National Portrait Gallery. These include Pieter Christoffel Wonder, Study for 'Patrons and Lovers of Art' in which Watson Taylor is the kneeling figure on the left. [The image is shown here.]

3. The Taylor family left an important collection of papers detailing, among other things, plantation life in Jamaica: see Taylor family of Jamaica (1770-1835), collection of papers in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. George Watson Taylor's wife was Anna Susannah Watson Taylor (1781-1853) who inherited the estates in Jamaica: Simon Taylor (1740-1813) left his estates to his nephew, Sir Simon Richard Brissett Taylor (1785-1815); after the latter's death his eldest niece, Anna Susannah Watson Taylor (1781-1853), inherited the estates. She had married George Watson in 1810 and the additional name Taylor was assumed at the time of the inheritance.

4. The Taylor Family Papers have been combined with the Vanneck-Arcedekne Papers from Cambridge University Library into a microfilmed collection on Plantation life in the Caribbean by Adam Matthews Publications.

5. In 1819, Joshua Smith MP for Devizes died and his house and estate at Erlestoke, Wiltshire, were sold to 'a flamboyant and fabulously wealthy Jamaican plantation owner, George Watson Taylor. His fortune, derived from sugar but dependent on slave labour, enabled him to number among his close friends the king, William IV, and to throw extravagant entertainments. But when he failed in his campaign, waged as a Devizes MP, against the abolition of slavery this life-style became unsustainable, and after 1832 Taylor descended into virtual bankruptcy, dying in 1841. The house was let to another colourful figure, Byron’s friend Cam Hobhouse, until around 1860, when the Watson Taylor family returned. Erlestoke became once more the centre of a large estate extending over many parishes until its sale and dispersal in 1919.' (Joshua Smith was himself married to the daughter of Nathaniel Gilbert of Antigua).

T71/872 Hanover claim no. 21 (Haughton Grove Pen); T71/879 St Kitts claim no. 26; T71/867 St Thomas-in-the-East claim no. 100; Lady Charlotte Bury, Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV (London 1839) Vol. III pp. 295-6.

1. Nicholas Draper, The Price of Emancipation. Slave-Ownership, Compensation and British Society at the End of Slavery (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009), Appendix 13.

2. Pieter Christoffel Wonder, ‘Study for “Patrons and Lovers of Art”’, oil on canvas, 1826-1830, 24½ in. x 18½ in. (622 mm x 470 mm), National Portrait Gallery, NPG792. [Accessed, 6 August 2012.]

3. ICS description: http://www.casbah.ac.uk/cats/archive/135/ICSA00040.htm [accessed 06/08/2012].

4. http://www.ampltd.co.uk/collections_az/plantation-life-1/description.aspx [accessed 06/08/2012].

5. For George Watson Taylor in Wiltshire see the parish history by John Chandler (which has some more details of the Watson Taylors in the 1860s). http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getconcise.php?id=93  [accessed 06/08/2012]. For Joshua Smith see http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/smith-joshua-1732-1819 [accessed 01/08/2013].

We are grateful to Gareth Evans for his assistance in compiling this entry.