William Taylor, 1865 - 1937

Mr . William Taylor died on 27 February, 1937, at the age of 71 years. He was born at Hackney in London on 11 June, 1865, the second son of Richard Taylor (for many years with I. & R. Morley, the Hosiery Manufacturers of Wood Street) and Marian ( nee Smithies), of York. H e and his brother were mechanics from childhood. At the village blacksmith’s shop and from the local wheelwright they learnt these crafts by actually practising them , and with a small lathe made by themselves they learnt the elements of turning. From Sir David Brewster’s articles in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia they obtained their first knowledge of science, broadened at Gowper Street School, Finsbury, under Dr. Richard Wormald. Dr. Wormald, a Leicester m an, was undoubtedly a pioneer in the teaching of science to boys. The school even possessed workshops, and in them the lads learnt wood and m etal turning under a highly skilled turner (a Master of the Worshipful Company of Turners) and joinery and cabinet making under an ex-naval carpenter. In these workshops the lads made a pair of the first telephones ever made in England and one of the first copies of Edison’s Tinfoil Phonograph, whilst at home they each made a lathe. Their workshop at home was an attic, and the noise of their operations becoming a nuisance in the house, they built themselves a workshop outside with concrete walls. William Taylor’s brother, being the elder, left school first, and William Taylor then became a demonstrator at Dr. Wormald’s lectures on physics.