Tom Taylor
Encyclopedia
Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin is an 1858 play in three acts by English playwright Tom Taylor. The play is a farce whose plot is based on the introduction of an awkward, boorish but honest American, Asa Trenchard, to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate...
, famous as the play which was being performed in the presence of American President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
when he was assassinated in 1865
Abraham Lincoln assassination
The assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commanding General of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee, and his battered Army of...
.
Biography
Taylor was born into a wealthy family at BishopwearmouthBishopwearmouth
Bishopwearmouth is an area in Sunderland, North East England.Bishopwearmouth was one of the original three settlements on the banks of the river Wear that merged to form modern Sunderland....
, present day Sunderland, in north-east England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. His father owned a brewery. After attending school at the Grange in Sunderland, and studying for two sessions at the University of Glasgow
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
, he entered Trinity College
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
at Cambridge University in 1837. In 1840 he received a B.A. with honors in both classics and mathematics, and a Master's degree in 1843.
Taylor began his working life as a journalist. Soon after moving to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, he wrote for the Morning Chronicle and the Daily News. He was on the staff of Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
until 1874, when he succeeded Charles William Shirley Brooks as editor. He was also was an art critic for The Times and The Graphic.
At the same time, for two years, he was a professor of English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
at University College, London. He was called to the bar at Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
in November 1846, and went on the northern circuit until he became assistant secretary of the Board of Health in 1850. On the reconstruction of the Board in 1854 he was made Secretary, and on its abolition his services were transferred to a department of the Home Office, retiring on a pension in 1876.
Taylor also wrote about painters, editing the Autobiography of B. R. Haydon (1853), the Autobiography and Correspondence of C. R. Leslie, R.A. (1860), and writing Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
(1865). He also edited Pen Sketches from a Vanished Hand, selected from papers of Mortimer Collins
Mortimer Collins
Mortimer Collins was an English writer and novelist. He was born at Plymouth, where his father, Francis Collins, was a solicitor. He was educated at a private school, and after some years spent as mathematical master at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, he relocated to London...
.
He died at his home in Battersea
Battersea
Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...
, London, in 1880 at the age of 62.
Theatre
Acting and stage direction
From an early age, Taylor had shown a predilection for theatre and performed dramatic pieces with a number of children in a loft over a brewer's stable.In 1842, Taylor, together with his Cambridge friends Frederick Ponsonby
Frederick Ponsonby, 6th Earl of Bessborough
Frederick George Brabazon Ponsonby, 6th Earl of Bessborough was a British peer and cricketer. He was the third son of John Ponsonby, 4th Earl of Bessborough and his wife Lady Maria Fane...
, Charles G. Taylor and William Bolland, formed the Old Stagers
Old Stagers
The Old Stagers is an amateur theatre group, founded in 1842 by Hon. Frederick Ponsonby and Charles Taylor. It claims to be the oldest surviving amateur dramatic company in the world, having staged its first shows in Canterbury in 1842. It has continued to give annual performances every year...
, which is recognised as the oldest amateur drama society still performing. The Old Stagers were invited to perform at the Canterbury Theatre during the Canterbury Cricket Week. Taylor, under his nom de theatre 'J. Noakes, Esq', performed with the Old Stagers for over 20 years. He was usually also Stage Manager and wrote many epilogues at the end of the Canterbury Cricket Week. He and the Old Stagers also performed in Royal Leamington Spa in 1852 and 1853 at the Theatre Royal during the I Zingari
I Zingari
I Zingari are English and Australian amateur cricket clubs.-History:...
Cricket Week. Most of the Old Stagers played cricket for I Zingari during the day and performed on the stage during the evening, but there is no evidence to suggest that Taylor played cricket.
Playwriting
Four of Taylor's burlesques were produced at the Lyceum Theatre in 1844. His first hit was To Parents and Guardians, produced at the Lyceum in 1845. Taylor eventually produced about 100 plays, although many were adaptations from the French or collaborations with other playwrights, notably Charles ReadeCharles Reade
Charles Reade was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth.-Life:Charles Reade was born at Ipsden, Oxfordshire to John Reade and Anne Marie Scott-Waring; William Winwood Reade the influential historian , was his nephew. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,...
. Some of his plots were adapted from the novels of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
or others. Many of Taylor's plays were extremely popular, and his stated intention was to construct popular plays. The best of them include Masks and Faces (1852, with Reade), Plot and Passion (1853), Still Waters Run Deep (1855), and The Ticket-of-Leave Man (1863), and Arkwright’s Wife (1873). He also wrote a series of historical dramas (many in blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
, including The Fool’s Revenge (1869), Twixt Axe and Crown (1870), Jeanne d'arc (1871), Lady Clancarty (1874) and Anne Boleyn (1875). In 1871, Taylor supplied the words to Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
's dramatic cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
, On Shore and Sea
On Shore and Sea
On Shore and Sea is a "dramatic cantata" composed by Arthur Sullivan, with words by Tom Taylor. Sullivan completed this work to open the Royal Albert Hall, and it was performed at the opening of the London International Exhibition of art and industry, May 1, 1871. The concert featured works...
.
Taylor's plays are mostly forgotten today, although several survived into the 20th century. His most famous play today is Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin is an 1858 play in three acts by English playwright Tom Taylor. The play is a farce whose plot is based on the introduction of an awkward, boorish but honest American, Asa Trenchard, to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate...
, remembered mostly for its association with Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
's assassination.
Selected bibliography
Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin is an 1858 play in three acts by English playwright Tom Taylor. The play is a farce whose plot is based on the introduction of an awkward, boorish but honest American, Asa Trenchard, to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate...
(1858) The Contested Election (1859) The Overland Route (1860) The Ticket-of-Leave Man (1863) Mary Warner (1869) The Fool's Revenge (1869)