After leaving the quiet retreat at Hendon, she was many years a governess in the family of the Rev. Mr. Huntly, of Kimbolton, in Huntingdonshire. This employment no doubt has recommendations, it certainly has serious drawbacks; among those that are inevitable is the effect of a lonely life on the governess. A great effort may be made to treat her as one of the family, but she does not really belong to it; and must spend the greater part of her time with young and immature minds, only varied by unequal association with the parents or grown-up brothers and sisters of her pupils. The society of her equals in age and position is entirely wanting, and the natural tendency of such mental solitude is to produce childishness, angularity, and narrow-mindedness. It must be a strong character indeed which can do without such wholesome trituration and the expansive influence of equal companionship, and this is just what a governess cannot have. She is moreover, always a bird of passage, and in this respect her position is worse than that of a domestic servant, who, besides being better remunerated and having the companionship of fellow-servants, may look forward to remaining in one family for life.
About the year 1829, Miss Jonn left Kimbolton and went to London to keep the house of one of her brothers. Soon after she went on a visit to a sister at Antwerp. Without attempting to detail her impressions concerning the numerous churches, convents, magnificent public buildings, elaborate and extensive fortifications, and stately antique-looking houses which line the older thoroughfares of that exceedingly picturesque city; we may say that during that journey Mr. George Taylor met her, and on the 1st of Feb., 1830, they were married at the British Ambassador’s chapel, at the Hague. On their return to London, Mrs. Taylor commenced teaching navigation, at 104, Minories. In consequence of her singular abilities in that branch of science, she gained the confidence and approval of the Board of Admiralty and the Trinity Brethren, as well as several foreign powers. Her husband meanwhile, was a manager for Sir Henry Meux, the well-known brewer, which situation he held till his death in 1859. Instead of being a burden to her five sons and one daughter, by means of her establishment in the Minories she more than provided for her own wants.
The English nation may be slow in perceiving merit, but when perceived, none appreciate it more highly. There is not an honour which we have to bestow, which is not designed to be awarded to those who have proved their title to it by steady worth. Mrs. Taylor began life with no wealth and with no patronage from powerful friends. She was dependent on her own efforts. When she enlarged her acquaintance beyond the limits of her girlhood and youth, she did not encounter a cold and unfriendly world, or find that those who had not before known her were disposed to impede her progress, or to throw embarrassments in her path. She came to London with but little experience, and with no such reputation as to make success certain. But by a diligent and irreproachable use of fine natural talents, she constructed her own greatness, and manufactured her own fortune. It is a good thing that even a woman may find many fields of usefulness, before which there is not the tiniest wicket-gate; and we rejoice to know that many women pursue in peace those paths to glory and gain that are already open to them.
Mrs. Taylor had the honour of being presented to King William and Queen Adelaide, whose amiable disposition and habitual beneficence made her a great favourite with the British nation. She had also the offer of a situation as reader to our present queen. But as the salary was small, and the attendance on her majesty was likely to interfere with her family and scientific arrangements, it was declined. In this decision, Edward Maltby, D.D., then Bishop of Durham concurred, and at the first meeting of the British Association held in Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1838, made honourable mention of her. At the world’s great assembly in 1851, she exhibited an ingeniously contrived little instrument—a quadrant and sextant—which the queen graciously accepted for the Prince of Wales. Mrs. Taylor received a medal from the King of the Netherlands, also in 1860 a very complimentary letter from the present pope, Pius IX., with a medal.
On the accession of Queen Victoria, £1200 was intrusted to her Majesty for the payment of pensions to persons who have just claims on the royal beneficence, or who, by their personal services to the crown, by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science, and attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their sovereign and the gratitude of their country. In consequence of her valuable services in the fields of science, Mrs. Taylor’s name was added to the civil list, and in 1862, she disposed of her business at 104, Minories, and retired to Camberwell Grove, on a pension of £50 per annum. Those who desolate nations, stay the progress of arts, manufactures, knowledge, civilization, benevolence, and religion; and sweep myriads of their fellow-creatures, unprepared, into eternity, we load with titles and treasures; and those who by their self-denying devotedness to the investigation of truth, have conferred benefits upon mankind, and thus deserved imperishable monuments, we reward with a pension of £50!
Though life with Mrs. Taylor was real and earnest, it was still in the review like a dream, and she was brought somewhat suddenly to the point where things seen lose all their importance, and things unseen become the only realities. She spent the evening of life—an evening worthy of the day, and beaming with the mild radiance that gave promise of a glorious morning of immortality—in visiting her relatives and friends. On the 15th of January, 1870, she went to Bishop-Aukland, a small town in the middle of her native county of Durham, pleasantly situated on an eminence, nearly 140 feet above the level of the plain; to spend a few days with her brother-in-law, the Rev. T. Chester, at the vicarage of St. Helen’s. The following week she was seized with bronchitis, and gradually sank until she died on Wednesday morning, January the 26th, in the sixty-sixth year of her age.
The death of Mrs. Taylor excited a degree of sympathy throughout the north of England, in London, and indeed in many other parts of the kingdom, that indicated how high and general was the esteem in which she was held. The funeral took place on the Saturday. A select body of relatives and friends assembled at the vicarage, St. Helen’s. As they approached the vault of her brother-in-law, the company bared their heads, while the body was committed to the ground, in the beautiful language of the English ritual; and then bade reluctantly a long adieu to one of the most distinguished of women.
“For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey
This pleasing anxious being e’er resigned?
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,