Author: Taylor, John
Biography:
TAYLOR, John (1757-1832: ODNB)
He was the son of Anne (Price) and John Taylor and was born at Highgate. Both his father and his grandfather were oculists to royalty. He was educated at Dr. Crawford’s, Hatton Garden, and at a school in Ponders End. With his brother Jeremiah he was oculist to both George III and George IV, but his real love was the theatre. He became a drama critic and journalist, editor of the Morning Post, owner of the True Briton, and, in 1813, owner and editor of The Sun. He quarrelled with William Jerdan who had been editor before Taylor and retained an ownership share of the newspaper. He sold the paper in 1825. Taylor kept himself at the centre of literary coffee house culture in London; he knew many celebrities and his two-volume Records of My Life (1832) is sparse on information about him but full of gossip about them. He was twice married: first, in 1788 to Catherine Duill with whom he had two sons, and second, after Catherine’s death, to Ann Fortescue. He and Ann also had at least one child. He died at his home on Great Russell Street, London. Monsieur Tonson was his most enduring work; it was rewritten in 1821 as a farce by William Thomas Thomas (q.v.) and performed at Drury Lane. The 1830 edition of Taylor’s poem has illustrations by Robert Cruikshank and was reissued in 1831 by William Kidd in Facetiae. (ODNB 2 Dec. 2020; ancestry.co.uk 2 Dec. 2020; WorldCat) SR