Life

The son of William Taylor (b. 1693), a versatile artisan, and Ann Taylor, he was born on 13 December 1730 in the parish of St. Michael in Bedwardine, in the city of Worcester

Worcester

The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

. In the early part of his career he worked successively as a brassfounder, a silversmith, and a surveyor. About 1752 he made his way to London, and found employment first at a silversmith’s, and then with Thomas Jefferys

Thomas Jefferys

Thomas Jefferys , "Geographer to King George III", was an English cartographer who was the leading map supplier of his day. He engraved and printed maps for government and other official bodies and produced a wide range of commercial maps and atlases, especially of North America.-Early work:As...

 the cartographer, at the corner of St. Martin's Lane

St. Martin's Lane

St. Martin's Lane is a street on the edge of Covent Garden in Central London, which runs from the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it is named, near Trafalgar Square northwards to Long Acre.A narrow street with relatively little traffic, St...

. Under his guidance he executed a number of plates for the Gentleman’s Magazine.

Taylor moved on to book illustration, working on William Owen Pughe

William Owen Pughe

William Owen Pughe was a Welsh antiquarian and grammarian best known for his Welsh and English Dictionary, published in 1803, but also known for his grammar books and 'Pughisms' ....

's Dictionary and Andrew Tooke

Andrew Tooke

Andrew Tooke was an English scholar, headmaster of Charterhouse School, Gresham Professor of Geometry, Fellow of the Royal Society and translator of Tooke's Pantheon, a standard textbook for a century on Greek mythology.-Life:...

's Pantheon. Soon after its incorporation, in January 1765, Taylor was admitted a fellow of the Society of Artists

Society of Artists

The Society of Artists of Great Britain was founded in London in May 1761 by an association of artists in order to provide a venue for the public exhibition of recent work by living artists, such as was having success in the long-established Paris salons....

, and in 1774 he was appointed secretary as successor to John Hamilton, being the third to hold that post. At the time he joined the society Taylor was living at Holles Street, Clare Market.

Taylor seems to have moved to the Bible and Crown, Holborn, about 1770, to Chancery Lane in 1773, and back to Holborn by 1776. When Thomas Bewick

Thomas Bewick

Thomas Bewick was an English wood engraver and ornithologist.- Early life and apprenticeship :Bewick was born at Cherryburn House in the village of Mickley, in the parish of Ovingham, Northumberland, England, near Newcastle upon Tyne on 12 August 1753...

 visited London in that year he received kind treatment from Taylor; when, however, after a short experience, Bewick decided that he would ‘rather herd sheep at five shillings a week than be tied to live in London . . . my kind friend left me in a pet and I never saw him more’ (Memoir, 1887, p. 105). Among Taylor's other personal friends were David Garrick

David Garrick

David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...

, Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...

, Francesco Bartolozzi

Francesco Bartolozzi

Francesco Bartolozzi was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London.He was born in Florence...

, Richard Smirke, and Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli was a British painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, of Swiss origin.-Biography:...

.

Soon after 1780 Taylor retired to Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

, and painted a few subjects in oil. He died at Edmonton on 17 October 1807, aged 77, and was buried in Edmonton churchyard, where there was a monument to him.

Works

He engraved for John Boydell

John Boydell

John Boydell was an 18th-century British publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated a British tradition in the art form...

 ‘A Flemish Collation,’ after Van Harp, which was shown at the first exhibition at Spring Gardens, and prefixed a vignette

Vignette (graphic design)

Vignettes, in graphic design, are decorative designs usually in books, used both to separate sections or chapters and to decorate borders.In Descriptive, or Analytical Bibliography for the hand-press period a vignette refers to an engraved design printed using a copper-plate press, on a page that...

 to John Langhorne's Poetical Works (1766), vignettes being then regarded as a virtual monopoly of the ‘library engravers’ of France. Taylor designed and engraved the vignette to Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...

's ‘Deserted Village’ in 1770. He also designed and engraved plates for ‘The Fool of Quality,’ a frontispiece to William Robertson's ‘Charles V’ (1772), cuts for Sparrman’s ‘Cape of Good Hope,’ Clavigero’s ‘Mexico,’ Chambers’s ‘Cyclopædia,’ and numerous other publications. Among his best-regarded engravings were those for his friend Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...

's novel Sir Charles Grandison, the plates for which he exhibited with the Society of Artists in 1778. ‘Not many plates,’ said Bewick, ‘have been superior to these,’ though ‘as designer,’ he adds, ‘he has in these attended too much to fashion and the change of mode.’

Portraits by Taylor include a pencil drawing of Cornelius Cayley (1773), Mrs. Abingdon as Lady Betty Modish (drawn and engraved), David Garrick in the character of a drunken sailor speaking the prologue to ‘Britannia’ (1778), Garrick as Tancred (1776).

Family

Taylor married at Shenfield, Essex, on 9 May 1754, Sarah Hackshaw Jefferys (1733–1809), daughter of Josiah and niece of Thomas Jefferys, and had issue Charles Taylor (1756–1823); Isaac Taylor (1759–1829)

Isaac Taylor (1759–1829)

Isaac Taylor of Ongar was an English engraver and writer of books for the young.-Early life:The son of Isaac Taylor by his wife Sarah, daughter of Josiah Jefferys of Shenfield, Essex, he was born in London on 30 January 1759...

; Josiah (1761–1834), a publisher in Hatton Garden

Hatton Garden

Hatton Garden is a street and area near Holborn in London, England. It is most famous for being London’s jewellery quarter and centre of the UK diamond trade, but the area is also now home to a diverse range of media and creative businesses....

; Sarah (1763–1845), who married Daniel Hooper; and Ann (1765–1832), who married James Hinton, a clergyman, and was mother of John Howard Hinton

John Howard Hinton

John Howard Hinton was an English author and Baptist minister who published, along with many other works, The History and Topography of the United States of North America together with his brother Isaac...

. He brought up his two eldest sons as engravers.

James Taylor (1745–1797), younger brother of Isaac, practised for many years as a china painter in the porcelain works at Worcester, but about 1771 came to London to work under his brother. He exhibited at the Incorporated Society between 1771 and 1775, and worked upon illustrations for magazines. Among his pupils was Anker Smith. James Taylor died in London on 21 December 1797. A son of James, who was for some time a singer at Vauxhall Gardens

Vauxhall Gardens

Vauxhall Gardens was a pleasure garden, one of the leading venues for public entertainment in London, England from the mid 17th century to the mid 19th century. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, the site was believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660 with the first mention being...

, was also an engraver.