Clementia Taylor

Clementia Taylor (née Doughty; December 17, 1810 – April 11, 1908) was an English women's rights activist and radical.^[1]

Life

Clementia (known as Mentia to her friends) was born in Brockdish, Norfolk, one of twelve children. Her family was Unitarian, and Clementia became the governess to the daughters of a local Unitarian minister who ran a boy's boarding school.^[1] In 1842 Clementia married Peter Alfred Taylor; the cousin of her pupils.^[1] Taylor was later the Liberal Member of Parliament for Leicester.

In 1863 Peter Taylor bought Aubrey House in the Campden Hill district of Holland Park in West London. The Taylors opened the Aubrey Institute in the grounds of the house; the institute gave young people the chance to improve a poor education they might have had.^[1] The lending library and reading room of the institute had over 500 books.^[1]

Taylor, Mary Estlin and Eliza Wigham were active in anti-slavery movement in England and in 1863 they all served on Ladies' London Emancipation Society which Taylor led.^[2] The Taylors were also closely involved in the movement for Italian unification and Giuseppe Mazzini was a frequent visitor to Aubrey House. Giuseppe Garibaldi stayed at the house for a few days during his celebrated 1864 visit to London. During his stay at Aubrey House he was visited by Mazzini, and noted radical figures such as feminist Emilie Ashurst Venturi; Aurelio Saffi, Karl Blind, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc.^[3]

In Moncure D. Conway's autobiography he describes the Taylor's salon at Aubrey House, and Clementia's "Pen and Pencil Club" at which the work of young writers and artists was read and exhibited.^[3] Conway, an American abolitionist and clergyman, moved to Notting Hill to be near the Taylors at Aubrey House.^[3] The Taylor's social gatherings were also noted by the American author Louisa May Alcott.^[1]

Attendees of the "Pen and Pencil Club" included the diarist Arthur Munby, feminists Barbara Bodichon, Lydia Becker, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Elizabeth Malleson.^[4] Clementia Taylor was on the organizing committee of the 1866 petition in favour of women's suffrage that John Stuart Mill presented to the British parliament; the 1499 signatures were collated in Aubrey House. It was in the house that the Committee of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage, held its first meeting in July 1867.^[1]

In 1873 the Taylors sold Aubrey House due to Peter's ill health and moved to Brighton. Tayor died in Brighton in 1908.^[1]

References

• Crawford, Elizabeth. "Taylor, Clementia". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/45468.  (Subscription or UK public library membership required.); cited as ODNB.