Jane Taylor

In recent months a blue plaque has appeared on No. 10 Castle Street, Ongar, which reads:-

Jane Taylor
1783 – 1824
Author of
Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star
Lived here.

Jane was the second daughter of Isaac Taylor and his wife Ann. She was born on 23rd September 1783 at 54 Red Lion Street, Holborn. (Her elder sister, Ann, had been born in Islington on January 30th 1782). Isaac and his brothers Charles and Josiah were skilled engravers. In 1787 they produced a much admired set of illustrations for an edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Eventually, Isaac broke away from his brothers and set up his own business.

In June 1786 the Taylor family moved from London to what was described as a “spacious but out of the way domain”-Cooke’s House in Shilling Street, Lavenham. In 1793 their landlord, Mr. Cooke, required the use of his property and Isaac with his growing family moved to nearby Arundel House. The family lived in Lavenham until January 1796. During this time six more children were born of whom only three survived childhood (Isaac, Martin and Jeffreys). Whilst Isaac developed his engraving business Ann and Jane received their education from their parents. Their mother taught them to read and sew and their father taught them all other subjects.

The two sisters, only 18 months apart in age, were inseparable and created a world of their own, inhabited by mythical characters including (amongst others) two imaginary daughters of George III. From a young age they started to write short stories and poems – something they would continue to do throughout their lives.

Whilst in Lavenham, Issac became an energetic member of the Independent Church of which he became a Deacon and taught at the Sunday school which he helped to found. At one stage it looked as though Isaac might take over as the minister but there was opposition from within the congregation. However, a member of the Lavenham congregation, who had moved to Colchester, invited Isaac to take over a dysfunctional Presbyterian chapel in Bucklersbury Lane, Colchester. Isaac preached his first sermon there on November 1st 1795 and on January 20 1796 he and his family moved to a house in Angel Lane, next door to St. Martin’s Church. During their time in Colchester two further children were born; Decimus, in 1796 (he died from Scarlet Fever at the age of 5) and Jemima who survived into her sixties.

In April 1796 Isaac was ordained and his new life as a minister began. Times were hard and earning very little from his ministry Isaac was forced to continue his work as an engraver. But in the aftermath of the war with France demand for works of art dried up and Isaac was reduced to engraving dog collars. All the children became involved with the engraving business and enough money came in to feed and clothe the family. Ann and Jane’s literary works began to sell well which helped the family finances.

In 1810 Isaac became fed up with his bickering and apathetic congregation and resigned his ministry. The family remained based in Colchester for a while and Isaac became an itinerant preacher. One of his trips took him to Ongar with which he was much taken. It was to become his home until his death in 1829. The family moved to Ongar on August 31st 1811 to Castle House, now and for many years the home of the Buxton family.
In a letter dated September 23rd to her friend Luck Conder, Ann gives a description of the family’s arrival in Ongar and of their delight with Castle House with ample space for the whole family and a beautiful location. She assured her friend that despite its historic site the house was not haunted.

Ann and Jane spent the Winter of 1811in Clapton with the Conder family preparing themselves for a joint teaching career. This never came to anything in part because their younger brother, Isaac, fell ill and the family doctor recommended that he should move to the West Country. Ann and Jane accompanied him and spent from October 1812 to July 1813 in Ilfracombe before returning to Ongar. With the onset of another Essex winter Isaac returned to the West Country this time accompanied only by Jane. They did not return to Ongar until June 1816.

Whilst they were away the owner of Castle House gave the family notice to quit and in June 1814 they moved to The Peaked Farm – an Elizabethan farmhouse on the Stondon road in Marden Ash. The house (now much smaller) still stands. In a letter which she wrote in December 1816, shortly after her return from the West Country, Jane described the Peaked Farm :- “Our house stands alone in a pretty country: it is an old farmhouse – more picturesque than splendid-and therefore it suits both our tastes and our fortunes.”

In December 1813 Ann had married the Rev. Joseph Gilbert and had moved to Rotherham but visited her family in Ongar as often as she could. Ann’s son, Josiah Gilbert, who spent some time living with his grandparents at Peaked Farm wrote that “…the old house and its inhabitants offered a remarkable spectacle-a literary and artistic workshop.” Isaac, helped by his children, continued with his work as an engraver.

In early 1822 their landlord, Capel Cure Esq. of Blake Hall, served a notice to quit Peaked Farm as he wished to let the farm land with the farmhouse. Isaac set about looking for somewhere to live and eventually found and purchased a suitable house at no. 10 Win Lane (now Castle Street). The younger Isaac Taylor described the house as “on the outskirts of the town” and as being “altogether more commodious” (by which he must have meant more convenient as the house was modest in size). Isaac set about improving the house which had been built by Nobles of Ongar in 1809. He added a study for himself (signs of which can still be seen on the west wall of the house) and created a garden on the “sadly small plot”.

Jane moved into 10 Castle Street with the family but by now she was suffering from cancer. Her younger sister, Jemima, writing some years later about life in Castle Street wrote:- “From 1822 we lived in that more compact house in Ongar – far better suited to my parents in their declining years but beside that the garden was small and the situation, comparatively townified – a feeling of melancholy attaches to it, for Aunt Jane’s health declined from the time we entered it.”

On April 13th 1824 Jane died at the age of 40 in her bedroom overlooking Castle Street. Her body was buried in the cemetery of the Chapel in Ongar “…close by a tall poplar near the vestry door,…” and within sight of the house which now bears the blue plaque – her home for such a short and sad part of her life.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.
As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,-
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Source: A.R. Hope Moncrieff, ‘Essex’ (1909), pages 64-66.

At the Castle Farm [Ongar] lived for a time Issac Taylor, buried with his daughter June in the Independent Chapel here; and their sojourn seems Ongar’s best title for modern fame.

Stanford Rivers was the home of this Isaac Taylor’s son, who, after the immortal Jeremy, comes chief of a name which fills five columns of the London Library Catalogue, and a volume and a half at the British Museum, while the best-known writings under this name must be ‘My Mother’ and ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star,”¹⁹⁷ by his sisters Ann and Jane. It has been claimed for the Trollopes that their output of authorship surpassed that of any British family; but such a claim might be doubtful when compared with the works of the Taylors of Ongar, so called in distinction from the Taylors of Norwich. It is quite a task to count the number of pens sharpened at or about Ongar, by a kindred whose inky record supplies Mr. Galton with an illustration of hereditary talent.

Issac Taylor I., springing from Worcester, but married in a connection with Essex, was an eminent engraver, an occupation shared with authorship by more than one of his offspring. Issac II., besides writing and engraving, became a Nonconformist pastor at Ongar during George III’s time. One of his brothers was a publisher; another won scholarly reputation as editor of Calmet’s ‘Dictionary of the Bible’. His wife wrote several edifying works, forgotten sooner than the nursery classics of his daughters Ann and Jane, the latter’s the most popular pen of the family, through a touch of humour that carried off the moralizing of tales like ‘The Discontented Pendulum’ and ‘The Complaint of the Dying Year’. Most of their books for the young were written in partnership by the two sisters. Their brother Jefferys brought out a score of small volumes, also for the improvement and instruction of young readers. But the great literary gun of this generation was Issac III.,¹⁹⁸ the author of ‘The Natural History of Enthusiasm’ and some two dozen other works still spoken with respect, though not much asked for at book clubs; he lived long enough to be a contributor to ‘Good Words’.¹⁹⁹ A son of Ann Taylor, Josiah Gilbert²⁰⁰ and Helen Taylor, daughter of an inkless brother, also came before the public in print. Lastly, the tale of this “Family pen” was written by Issac IV., author of ‘Words and Places’, of whom I can speak from acquaintance; he cast off his ancestral Nonconformity and died in our own time as Canon of York. A younger brother then survived as a writer on archaeology, and another as an architect in Manchester.

Ann Taylor, by the way, lived as Mrs. Gilbert till 1866, to see many changes, and to substitute a more “up-to-date” sentiment for the original ending for her best-known poem.

For God, who lives above the skies,
Would look with anger in His eyes
If ever I should care despise My Mother.²⁰¹

Footnotes

¹⁹⁷ See Journal No. 36: “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” – High Country History Group

¹⁹⁸ See Journal No. 68: Mr Isaac Taylor of Stanford Rivers – High Country History Group

¹⁹⁹ See Journal No. 43: The Death of Isaac Taylor – High Country History Group

²⁰⁰ See Journal No. 57: Obituary to Josiah Gilbert (d.1893) – High Country History Group

²⁰¹ Moncriff, A.E. Hope. ‘Essex’ (A.C. Black, London, 1909) p.64-66