Simon Watson Taylor (politician)

Simon Watson Taylor (1811 – 25 December 1902) was a Liberal Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Devizes in Wiltshire from 1857 to 1859.[1][2]

For the translator and surrealist, see Simon Watson Taylor (surrealist).

He was the son of George Watson-Taylor, also a Member of Parliament. The family estates were in west Wiltshire at Erlestoke and nearby parishes, and included Baynton House, Coulston.[3]

Owner of Jamaican plantations

His family derived its wealth from sugar and slavery in the Colony of Jamaica. In 1852, Simon Watson Taylor inherited his Jamaican estates from his mother Anna. The vast majority of the wealth created by her great-uncle Simon Taylor (sugar planter) had been largely squandered by George.[4]

Watson Taylor maintained a strong interest in the affairs of Jamaica, and offered public support to Governor Edward John Eyre, who brutally suppressed the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865. Watson Taylor helped found the Eyre Defence Fund, which aimed to vindicate the former governor as an imperial hero.[5]

Family

On 30 June 1843 Watson Taylor married Lady Hannah Charlotte Hay (1818–1887), one of the daughters of Field Marshal George Hay, 8th Marquess of Tweeddale (1787–1876), thus becoming a brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, the Marquess of Dalhousie, the 9th Marquess of Tweeddale, George Hay, Earl of Gifford, Admiral of the Fleet Lord John Hay, General Sir Richard Taylor, and Sir Robert Peel, 3rd Baronet.[6]

The marriage resulted in at least two daughters, Rose Edith (died 1933) and Violet Emily (died 1937). By each daughter there were grandchildren.[6]

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References
  1. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 2)
  2. Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. pp. 107–8. ISBN 0-900178-26-4.
  3. "Victoria County History: Wiltshire: Vol 8 pp234-239 – East Coulston". British History Online. University of London. 1965. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  4. Christer Petley, White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 214-5.
  5. Petley, White Fury, p. 215.
  6. Lady Hannah Charlotte Hay at thepeerage.com
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
John Gladstone and
George Heneage		 Member of Parliament for Devizes
1857–1859
With: Christopher Darby Griffith		 Succeeded by
Christopher Darby Griffith and
John Gladstone


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