Taylor, Charles

Person

Taylor, Charles

1840 - 1908

Born 24 May 1840 in Westminster, Charles Taylor was the son of William and Catherine Taylor. After losing his father aged 5, Taylor moved to live in Hampstead. He was educated at St Marylebone and All Souls Grammar School, London (in union with King's College), and afterwards at King's College itself. He won prizes at both of these schools, and it was at King's College that he began his lifelong friendship with Ingram Bywater (later Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford).

Taylor entered St John's College in October 1858, where initially he devoted most of his attention to mathematics. In 1860 he was elected to one of the new foundation scholarships, and in 1862 he obtained his BA as 9th Wrangler and was also placed in the second class of the classical tripos. In 1863, he obtained a First in the theological exam, and in 1864 he won the Crosse scholarship and the first Tyrwhitt scholarship. He was elected to a fellowship in 1864; obtaining his MA in 1865, the Kaye Prize in 1867, and his DD in 1881. Taylor also had interests in the Church, and was ordained deacon in 1866, priest in 1867, and was Curate of St Andrew the Great 1887-8. He was also Select Preacher at Cambridge 1887, 1893, and 1899, and 1873 he was appointed as College Lecturer in Theology; a position from which he soon made his mark as a Hebrew scholar.

In 1877-8, Taylor took an active part in the revision of the statutes of the College, and in 1879 he was chosen as one of three commissioners to represent the College in conferring with the University Commission. Before these new statutes could come into force, the College Master, W. H. Bateson, died, and Taylor was elected as his successor on 12 April 1881. From November 1880 Taylor was a member of the Council of the University. He represented the university at the 250th anniversary of the founding of Harvard, where he received an honorary degree on 8 November 1886. He served in the office of Vice-Chancellor of the university 1887-9, and in 1889 he was one of two university aldermen who were chosen as members of the borough of Cambridge; an office he retained until 1895. He made important donations to both the University Library and to St John's College (including the Lady Margaret Boat Club), and published many works from 1863 onwards. He was also President of the University Theological Society 1902-3, and of the Philological Society 1900-1.

As a student at St John's, Taylor was fond of sculling and rowed in the college boat races from 1863-6. He was always a great walker, and proved to be an energetic mountaineer during the period 1870-8; writing for the Alpine Journal in 1872, and being a member of the Alpine Club from 1873 until his death. In October 1907, Taylor married Margaret Sophia (1877-1962), daughter of the Hon. Conrad Adderly Dillon, but he then died suddenly less than a year later on 12 August 1908 whilst on a foreign tour at the Goldner Adler, Nuremberg. After a funeral service in St John's College, his body was buried in St Giles's cemetery, Cambridge, on the 17th. A stained-glass window was placed in the College Chapel by his widow to commemorate him.

J. E. Sandys, revised by John D. Pickles, Taylor, Charles (1840-1908), college head, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
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