Margaret and Paul Taylor
Very little was known about Paul Taylor’s early life, and his daughters Sarah and Frances, only had limited information.
Family beginnings
Edith Lea (their Mother) was born on January 7th, 1876 in Whalley Range, South Manchester. At the age of 33, on June 5th, 1909 she married John William Taylor II aged 56 and it was his second marriage. Margaret Lea Taylor was born on December 14th, 1911 and Paul Lea Taylor on January 25th, 1914. Paul was said to be named after the 1881 17-ton bell Great Paul at St Paul’s Cathedral but January 25th is also “The Conversion of St. Paul’s day” and the family believe this was the reason he was called Paul.
After John William’s death
When John William died on June 4th, 1919 aged 66, Edith was left the rental income from several properties. A detailed codicil left every item in Bell Foundry House and crockery and linen from a previous house. It was anticipated that she would return to Manchester with the children following his death. A trust fund was established for Paul and Margaret’s “maintenance, education and future advancement”, with lump sums of money when they turned 21.
Life after Loughborough
The 1921 census shows Edith and seven-year-old Paul staying at a seaside hotel in Llandudno, Caernarvonshire. Meanwhile, Edith’s sister Emma, a School Inspector for Salford Education Department was living in Whalley Range with their brother Arthur Lea, a shipping merchant. On census day, nine-year-old Margaret was staying with them, possibly because her aunt didn’t want her missing school. Paul told me that he and Margaret played in the bell foundry during some school holidays, accompanied by their mother.
Education and early years
In 1923, aged nine, Paul became a boarder at the Mostyn House School in Cheshire. Two years later, he transferred to the Moor Allerton Preparatory School in Manchester and in 1928 he went to the Oundle Public School in Northamptonshire, leaving in 1931 aged 17.
Tragically, Edith died of cancer on December 27th, 1929 and Margaret and Paul were orphaned. From then on, they lived with their Aunt Emma and Uncle Arthur. Following the Taylor family tradition in 1931-32, Paul undertook a one-year apprenticeship at Metropolitan-Vickers, a major engineering company in Manchester.
University and return to Loughborough
In 1932 Paul began studying engineering at Sheffield University, with his Aunt Emma named as his guardian. He graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1935 aged 21, and in the university holidays he returned to the bell foundry to work and learn the ropes. During one of these periods, he met Dorothy L. Sayers the author, who was compiling information for her book “The Nine Tailors” published in 1934. Paul was very helpful during her visits and one bell in her book is named “Tailor Paul” after him! In 1935 he received his inheritance from his father’s trust fund as had Margaret in 1932. Paul returned to the bell foundry permanently the same year and his Uncle Edmund Denison Taylor made him a junior partner in the bell foundry.
‘Great George’ and later years
In 1940, aged just 26, Paul supervised the work of moulding and casting Great George for Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and he tuned it, as his uncle was in poor health. It was a considerable achievement and although it is the same diameter of 9ft 6 ins / 2.9m as Great Paul, it is one note lower in pitch weighing 14.65 tons. In 1981, at my request, it was tolled at the time of Paul’s funeral.
War years and family life
When Emma died in 1939 and Arthur in 1945 both Paul and Margaret inherited equal sums of money and Emma also left Margaret her clothes and jewellery. The 1939 wartime register lists Paul (described as a “bellfounder and engineer”) and Margaret (“private means”) living at 8 Burton Street, Loughborough, not Bell Foundry House. During the Second World War, Paul served as a Flight Engineer in the RAF and he married Muriel (Merle) Ellis in 1944. At some stage during the war, Paul was serving in Gibraltar, when he was knocked off his bicycle by a Spanish taxi driver. He was flown back to the UK with a head injury, a depressed fracture of his skull. Forces neurosurgery cases went to St Hugh’s College, Oxford where he was operated on and made a full recovery. He was then posted to Bally Kelly in Northern Ireland and it was there that he met Merle. They were demobbed in 1945 as he had vital information to learn from his Uncle. In 1946 Paul and Merle were living at Bell Foundry House, Sarah was born in the September and Frances was born August 1948. Edmund Denison Taylor, who had been running the bell foundry since 1919, died in 1947.
Paul was an accomplished violin and viola player. He played in a number of orchestras, including the Leicester Symphony and privately in both quartet and quintets. Paul was in contact with John Betjeman prior to him publishing his book “Summoned by Bells” in 1960 and was given a copy with a personal inscription.
On December 5th 1954, Paul and Merle had a son, John William. It was hoped that in due course he would, as the heir, become a bell founder and run the foundry. Very sadly, he suffered from childhood leukaemia which was then incurable and died on December 27th 1961, the same date that Paul and Margaret’s mother had died.
Margaret married in 1955 and died in 1978. Paul died on 11th October, 1981 from a heart attack and this was the end of 200 years of Taylor family bell founding.
Mike Milsom. Additional information from Sarah and Frances, Paul Taylor’s daughters.
Photo – Paul Taylor in the tuning shop shortly before he died. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Sargeant.