Thomas Taylor (historian)

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For other people of this name, see Thomas Taylor (disambiguation).

Thomas Taylor (born February 26, 1858) was a Priest, historian and scholar of Celtic culture.

Taylor was born in Thurvaston, Derbyshire, England. He attended King Edward VI School, Macclesfield becoming head boy in 1874. He matriculated at St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1877, and graduated in the Mathematics Tripos in 1881, receiving his MA in 1886. Taylor took Holy Orders on going down from Cambridge, being ordained Deacon at Rochester in 1881 and was made Priest there in 1883.

After a few years in Australia, he settled with his wife and family in Cornwall. He served as Vicar first at All Saints Church in Falmouth from 1890 and then at Redruth from 1892. In 1897 he accepted promotion to be Dean and Chapter at St Breward. During his time there as Vicar he found the parish registers to be complete from 1599 to 1812. His work editing the Parish Registers brought him into contact with W. P. Phillimore, a publisher of books relating to Ecclesiastical Law, who in 1905 appointed him Editor of the Parish Marriage Registers throughout the diocese. By 1916 he had published twenty-five volumes. It is this work, much used by genealogists and family historians, that he is probably most widely known.

Taylor served as an honorary Canon of Truro Cathedral from 1917 to 1938. In 1919 he was appointed Canon and went to serve at Winwalloe. He was elected Proctor and held this office from 1919 to 1935. He also served as Rural Dean of Penwith from 1924 to 1927. His standard works '‘Celtic Christianity'’ and '‘Life of St Samson" are still sources of reference. He became known as ‘the poor man’s lawyer’ as a result of his freely given assistance in matters of compensation for injuries sustained in tin mining. Canon Taylor was made a bard at the inaugural Gorseth Kernow held at Boscawen-Un, St Buryan on September 21, 1928. He took the bardic name ‘'Gwas Ust'’ (‘Servant of St. Just’).

[edit] Bibliography

Life of St. Samson of Dol. ISBN 0-947992-77-4
The Celtic Christianity of Cornwall. by Longmans (1916) ISBN 1-897853-97-1
Cornwall Parish Registers. Edited by Thomas Taylor, M.A., F.S.A. Vicar of St. Just in Penwith. published in London, 1914 by Phillimore & Co
The life of Dr. John Taylor of Ashbourne (1909) by Nisbet
The History of St. Michael's Mount by Cambridge University press (1932)