Author: Taylor, Thomas
Biography:
TAYLOR, Thomas (1758-1835: ODNB)
Thomas Taylor “the Platonist” was born in London on 15 May 1758 and baptised as a dissenter on 4 July. His father was a staymaker, Joseph Taylor, who had married Mary Summers in 1751. His parents intended that he should become a dissenting minister. The formal study of ancient languages that he began at St. Paul’s School in 1767 was resumed, after some interruptions, in London in 1776-8 but broken off after the discovery of his marriage to his childhood sweetheart Mary Morton—which is usually dated 1777 (no public record has been found). They settled in Walworth, Surrey, and had five children born between 1779 and 1791. After her death in 1809 Taylor married Susannah Ricketts (d 1823) in Bermondsey on 8 June 1813; the couple had one son, Thomas Proclus Taylor (1816-59). Taylor spent six years in the early 1780s working as a bank clerk while pursuing his studies in Greek philosophy and writing articles occasionally for such periodicals as the European Magazine and the Monthly Magazine. He then delivered twelve lectures on Platonic philosophy at the house of the artist John Flaxman (1755-1826) and began to attract patrons for an ambitious series of new translations from Plotinus, Proclus, Plato, Aristotle, Porphyry, and others. An appointment as assistant secretary to the Society of Arts (1797-1806) must have brought him valuable contacts. Several applications to the RLF which brought in grants of 45 guineas between 1795 and 1804 were made not by Taylor himself but by others on his behalf. The Duke of Norfolk subsidized his translation of the complete works of Plato. He wrote extensively on ancient mysticism--Neoplatonism, oracles, hymns. (He was also an advocate for animal rights with his Vindication of the Rights of Brutes in 1792.) Though many of his contemporaries found his prose unintelligible and his philosophy (“The Platonic Philosopher’s Creed”) unchristian, his pioneering presentation of unknown and arcane authors was a revelation to some influential writers. After his death at Walworth on 1 Nov. 1835, a newspaper obituary summed him up as “a man of immense erudition, with very peculiar opinions” (OUCH). The RLF contributed to the funeral expenses and later supported two surviving children, Ann (Taylor) Jones—a widow with eight children—and Thomas Proclus Taylor, dying of consumption. (ODNB 6 Aug. 2024; ancestry.com 6 Aug. 2024; findmypast.com 6 Aug. 2024; RLF #32; OUCH 5 Dec. 1835) HJ