An uncompromising individualist, Taylor took a prominent, and professionally unpopular, part in securing the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act; he was a determined opponent of vivisection and of compulsory vaccination. He held strong views on diet, was an abstainer not merely from alcohol and tobacco but even from tea and coffee, and took only two meals a day. Most of his estate of 160,000l. was distributed by will among the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection; the London Anti-Vivisection Society; the British committee of the International Federation for the Abolition of the State Regulation of Vice; the National Anti-Vaccination League; and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
[Brit. Med. Journal, 1909, i. 1033; Ophthalmoscope, vol. ix. 1909, p. 376 (with portrait); Ophthalmic Review, xxviii. 133; The Tunes, 1 July 1909 some of his eccentricities are well described by Col. Anstruther Thomas, Master of the Pytchley, in his Eighty Years' Reminiscences; additional information kindly obtained by Mr. Charles Taylor, M.R.C.V.S., of Nottingham, his nephew.]
TAYLOR, HELEN (1831–1907), advocate of women's rights, born at Kent Terrace, London, on 27 July 1831, was only daughter and youngest of three children of John Taylor, wholesale druggist of Mark Lane, and his wife Harriet, daughter of Thomas Hardy of Birksgate, near Kirkburton, Yorkshire, where the family had been lords of the manor for centuries. Taylor, a man of education, early inspired his daughter with a lifelong love for history and strong filial affection. Helen's education was pursued desultorily and privately. She was the constant companion of her mother, who, owing to poor health, was continually travelling. Mrs. Taylor's letters to her daughter, shortly to be published, testify to deep sympathy between the two.
The father died in July 1849, and in April 1851 Helen's mother married John Stuart Mill [q. v.]. Mrs. Mill died on 3 Nov. 1858 at the Hotel de l'Europe, Avignon, when on the way with her husband to the south of France. In order to be near his wife's grave Mill bought a house at Avignon, which subsequently passed to Miss Taylor. Miss Taylor now devoted herself entirely to Mill, and became his 'chief comfort.' She not only took entire charge of practical matters and of his heavy correspondence, answering many of his letters herself, but also co-operated in his literary work, especially in 'The Subjection of Women' (1869), much of which had already been suggested by her mother. Mill used to say of all his later work that it was the result not of one intelligence, but of three, of himself, his wife, and his step-daughter. Mill died in 1873. Miss Taylor, who had edited in 1872, with a biographical notice, the miscellaneous and posthumous works of H. T. Buckle, a devoted adherent of Mill's school of thought, edited in 1873 Mill's 'Autobiography'; and in 1874 she issued, with an introduction, his essays, 'Nature, The Utility of Religion, Theism.'
Mill's death left Miss Taylor free to enter public life and so further the social and political reforms in which her step-father had stirred her interest. Possessed of ample means, which she generously employed in public causes, she made her home in London, while spending her holidays at the house at Avignon which Mill left her. On all subjects her opinions were advancedly radical. Her principles were at once democratic and strongly individualist, but she favoured what she deemed practicable in the socialist programme. A fine speaker in public, she fought hard for the redress of poverty and injustice. Mill had refused, in 1870, through lack of time, the invitation of the Southwark Radical Association to become its candidate for the newly established London School Board. In 1876 Miss Taylor accepted a like request, and was returned at the head of the poll after a fierce conflict. Although a section of liberals opposed her on account of her advanced opinions, her eloquence and magnetic personality won the support of all shades of religious and political faith. She was again returned at the head of the poll both in 1879 and 1882. She retired in 1884 owing to ill-health. During her nine years' service she scarcely missed a meeting. Her educational programme included the abolition of school fees, the provision of food and shoes and stockings to necessitous children, the abolition of corporal punishment, smaller classes, and a larger expenditure on all things essential to the development of the child and the health of the teacher. While she was a member of the board, she provided at her own expense, through the teachers and small local committees, a midday meal and a pair of serviceable boots to necessitous children in Southwark. She was a prominent member of the endowment committee of the board, and was
