Copies of documents relating to the Taylor family of Brighton and Robertsbridge in...

These papers relate to three generations of the Taylor family of Brighton and their property in Western Road, Stone Street and Clarence Square. Elias Taylor (1808-1871) was baptised at Fawley in Hampshire on 10 July 1808, the son of Elias Taylor and Elizabeth Wyatt. On 26 March 1832 at Brighton he married Mary Daws, daughter of William Daws, and following her death he married, again at Brighton, Mary Burgess, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Burgess of Ewhurst, on 13 February 1837. In 1841 and 1851 Elias Taylor was enumerated in Western Road, Brighton, as a stationer. By 1861, when he was listed as a proprietor of houses, he had moved to Hartford Villa in Patcham, where he died on 29 December 1871. His will, leaving an estate of under £4000, was proved by William Dawson Savage of Ellerslie House, Park Road, Brighton, chemist, and Thomas Williams of Wadhurst, farmer, on 14 February 1872. In 1867, when drafts were prepared for the sale of 10 and 11 Montpelier Street, Elias Taylor was decribed as out of business, and since by 1894 number 11 was owned by his daughter Kate Taylor, perhaps the conveyance was executed to keep the property out of the hands of his creditors. It is possible that Elias Taylor's financial embarrassment was brought about by the failure in business of his son Harry Taylor. Harry Taylor, Elias and Mary's first child, was born in Brighton in about 1838. In 1861 he and his wife Eleanor were enumerated at 63 Western Road, an account-book manufacturer employing one boy. The 1863 directory is more expansive, listing Harry as a bookseller, stationer, book-binder, machine ruler and account-book maker. Harry Taylor then disappears from view and, unless he is to be identified as the Robert H Taylor, a fancy bazaar keeper living with his wife Ellen and son Robert H Taylor at Thornton Heath in 1871, the next trace is his death at Hartford Villa in Patcham, a photographer with an estate of under £600, on 5 April 1877. His will was proved by Henry Abbey of Fairlee, Brighton, brewer, on 16 May 1877. Harry's son Robert Harry Norman Taylor, known as Harry, was aged about ten at his father's death, and seems to have been assisted by his father's sister Kate Taylor, who remained unmarried. At the end of the 1880s he went to work for his cousin Robert Henry Burgess at Park Farm, Robertsbridge, but by 1889 had acquired the tenancy of a farm of his own. On 21 May 1889 he married Emily, daughter of Charles Davis, a widower of Goodgrooms Farm in Salehurst, and the couple lived there until after March 1892; a stillborn daughter was delivered in May 1890. In an extensive series of letters to his aunt, Harry confessed to having sown 'some very wild oats when I first went to the Park', but declared an intention to settle down to farming. The capital was provided by Kate Taylor, who also seems to have managed her late father's property in Brighton, to some of the rental from which Harry was entitled. Kate's sister Fanny Taylor, Harry's aunt, had married Henry Abbey at Patcham on 23 June 1859 (PAR 437/1/3/2). Abbey, who died in 1911 at the age of 94 at Fairlee Villa, Abbey Street (formerly Great College Street), seems to have become the patriarch of his wife's generation of Taylors. At first Harry was not on the best of terms with his Abbey cousins, and seems to have resented the tendency of his other aunts to entrust their business to Henry Abbey, a prominent brewer and an alderman of Brighton. In 1890 he expressed himself 'rather put out with the whole Fairlee party' after receiving a critical letter from Aunt Fanny. Despite his aunt Kate's help Harry gave up farming and moved to London. In 1898 he wrote from a new address in Fulham to request a further loan of £1000 'to give me another start in life'; he was enumerated there in 1901 as a commercial traveller. By 1905 he made clear to Kate Taylor that his aunt Fanny had been good to him; the letter, from West Ealing, ends on a slightly acrimonious note. Harry's final letter from Goodgrooms, written on 8 January 1910, thanks his aunt for paying a doctor's account, and expresses hope that with good weather, he will manage to get on 'now aunt Fanny has helped me to get this little business'. Harry and his wife sent flowers to the funeral of his uncle Henry Abbey, JP, who died on 11 September 1911 (Sussex Daily News, 14 September 1911 page 8 column d), and was remembered with a legacy of £50 in the will of his widow Fanny the following year (ACC 5376/48/4).

Given by M Packham, Horsham, 4 July 2000 (ACC 8158 part)

These documents were purchased by their donor at an antique shop in Upper Gardner Street, Brighton, and seem in all probability to come from the same source as the draft deeds and papers, given by the same donor, forming part of ACC 8158, listed as AMS 6714.