John Taylor (was Tailyour) of Kirktonhill

Father of Simon Taylor of Kingston (q.v.) and brother of Robert Taylor senior of Ember Court (q.v). John Taylor himself was 'a Montrose-born merchant and slave-trader in Kingston, Jamaica [who] returned to Britain in 1792 and a year later married Mary McCall, the daughter of a Glasgow West India merchant family, before purchasing this father's old estate of Kirktonhill, Forfarshire.' Family papers are at the University of Michigan.

1. The will of John Taylor of Kirktonhill was proved 17/07/1816. In the will he left his property primarily to his eldest son Robert Taylor. There is no mention of slave-property. Anthony Cooke shows a total estate of £33,562, including: a loan owed by James McCall of Ireland £2000; subscription for building bridge over North Esk £500, rents on estates of Kirktonhill and Garvock £2,644, sum owed by Samuel McCall, Ireland £3000, balance due by brother Robert Taylor merchant of London £5,640, 3% consols £15,730.

William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Tailyour Family Papers 1743-2003, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsmss/umich-wcl-M-4207tai?view=text [accessed 28/09/2016]; Nicholas Radburn, 'Guinea Factors, Slave Sales, and the Profits of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Late Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: The Case of John Tailyour', The William and Mary Quarterly Volume 72, Number 2, April 2015, 3rd series pp. 243-286.

1. PROB 11/1582/310; Anthony Cooke, 'An elite revisited: Glasgow West India merchants, 1783-1877', Journal of Scottish Historical Studies 32.2 2012 pp. 127-165, at p. 165; CC 20/7/8/647 05/12/1816.