The Taylor family
It seems that the earliest Taylor we know of was James Taylor, a doctor in Bailieborough, Co. Cavan, who married Margaretta Bell in 1848. They had two sons who also became doctors, another son, Charles John Taylor, who died whilst he was a medical student in 1881, and a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Taylor, who died before she was twenty-one years old in 1872. A later descendant traced the Taylor family history back to the late 1700s, but sadly this record disappeared when their Family Bible was lost.
Dr James A. Taylor (1853-1928)
James was born around 1853, which is likely because he was a student at the City of Dublin Hospital until 1874. He became Licentiate of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians, Licentiate at the Royal College of Surgeons, and Licentiate of Midwifery, Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland. In 1875, he travelled to and from Melbourne, Australia, onboard the Malabar and attended the Adelaide Hospital. In 1880, he was medical officer of Tandragee Dispensary District and reported on the epidemic of typhoid fever that had existed in his district for over six weeks, killing 14 people.
An illuminated album was presented to him in 1920, marking 45 years service. It consisted of an address from some two hundred friends and patients in Tandragee and the surrounding districts, expressing their high appreciation of his personal and professional qualities. The album also contained little water-colour views of the neighbourhood and places in the North of Ireland, painted by James, and inlet into the illuminated border. By that time he was also a JP and Medical Officer of Health for Tandragee Urban and Rural Districts.
James lived at Market Square, Tandragee, and died in 1928. It is believed that his mother lived with him there until her death in 1897. James also had a connection with Warrenpoint because he owned the Mansion House and property opposite. During the latter years of his life he was in litigation with his nephew, William Sinclair Taylor, concerning property held in trust and earlier marriage settlements.
Dr William Taylor (c.1853-1896)
William married Ellen Sinclair in 1874 and lived at Church Lane, Downpatrick, Co. Down. William died in 1896 and Ellen thirteen years later in 1909 at Aughnacloy, Co. Tyrone. They had three children, William Sinclair, Charles Edward and James, who were remembered by their Sinclair cousins because they spent their summer holidays at Rostrevor, not far from Warrenpoint. Charles Edward died about eleven years old in 1892.James married Mary Moore Lloyd Turner and was a chemist at Market Square, Enniscorthy, until 1911. They had three children, Charles William, James Lloyd and Iris Muriel May between 1907 and 1909, and several more before the family emigrated to Australia.
William Sinclair Taylor was born in 1876 and became a pharmacist at “W. S. Taylor The Medical Hall”, next door to the old Imperial Hotel adjoining the Town Hall in the High Street, Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh. He lived at “Lakemount”, which became known locally as “Hencol Castle” because he built it from the profits derived from a powder he made that cured gapes in chickens. He also made “Anti Tussi”, a cough medicine the local farmers swore by and bought in vast quantities! “Lakemount” was the first house in Enniskillen to be sold for more than a million pounds.
William married Mary Ritchie in 1900 and they had two children, William Ritchie Sinclair and Cecil Leonard James. William died unmarried and an alcoholic in Birmingham, England, but Cecil married Mabel Patricia Browne, the daughter of Frederick Robert Browne, an Auctioneer and Estate Agent in Enniskillen in 1931 and had one son, Peter Frederick Sinclair Taylor.
