Herbert Taylor
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Lieutenant-General the Rt Hon Sir Herbert Taylor, GCB GCH, was the first Private Secretary to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom.
Born 1775, he joined the 2nd Dragoon Guards as a cornet in 1794. The following year he was promoted to Lieutenant and in the same year to Captain. In 1795 he served as Assistant Secretary and Aide de Camp to the Duke of York, and then as Assistant Military Secretary, an office he held until 1798. He was later a Major. In 1798 he was made Aide de Camp, Military Secretary and Private Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In the following year however he became Aide de Camp to the Duke of York again, an office he held until 1805. In 1801 he was transferred to the 9th West Indian Regiment as a Lieutenant-Colonel.
However in the following year, with a period of relative calm in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, he was placed on half pay. In that year he joined the Coldstream Guards, in which he became a brevet colonel in 1810. In 1805 he became Private Secretary to the Sovereign, and then, from 1811 Private Secretary to Queen Charlotte, King George III's queen consort. He retained that office until 1818.
Colonel Herbert Taylor was in command of a brigade at Antwerp 1813-1814, and was sent on a diplomatic mission to Bernadotte of Sweden in 1814. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Windsor 1820-23. From 1820 to 1827 he was Ambassador to Berlin and then Military Secretary, having transferred to the 85th Foot in 1823 as a colonel. He was First and Principal Aide de Camp to the Sovereign in 1827, and also Deputy Secretary at War. From 1828 to 1830 he was Adjutant-General. He became Private Secretary to the new King William IV in 1830. On the death of the King in 1837 he retired, although he was First and Principal Aide de Camp to the Sovereign 1837-39.
Sir Herbert Taylor became a Major-General in 1813, and a Lieutenant-General in 1825.
Sir Herbert was Master of St Katherine's Hospital, Regents Park, and Master Surveyor and Surveyor-General of the Ordnance from 1828. He died in 1839.
