William Joseph Taylor (1802 – March 1885) was a British medallist and engraver who produced a wide variety of medals and tokens throughout his career, including the majority of medals and tokens produced in London, as well as a notable enterprise in Australia which attempted to establish the continent's first private mint.
Biography
William Joseph Taylor was born in Birmingham in 1802. In 1818 Thomas Halliday employed him as an apprentice and was the first die-sinker to be trained by Halliday. From 1 November 1820 onward, his wage was eight shillings per week. In 1829 Taylor moved to London and set up his own business as a die-sinker, engraver and medallist. The first workplace was 5 Porter Street in Soho, then he moved back to Birmingham and set up premises at 3 Lichfield Street. By 1843 it was time for the premises to move once more to 33 Little Queen Street, Holborn; in 1869 they moved to 70 Red Lion Street.
Taylor died at 70 Red Lion Street in 1885. His sons Theophilus and Herbert took over the business which operated until circa 1908, although Theophilus left in 1892. Herbert Taylor sold the business to John Finches in 1908.
Career
Whilst the majority of his work was in London, Taylor did work in other British locations: Eleazar Johnson was his agent in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire; he also produced tokens for the Grantham auctioneer Escritt's (and his sons produced for the later partnership Escritt & Barrell). He also collaborated to produce token currency in Australia.
During his career, Taylor collaborated with William Webster, who issued a brass token designed and produced by Taylor. One of Taylor's employees was W. E. Bardelle, a medallist, who worked for him for most of his life. Another colleague was the painter and engraver Henry Weigall, who modelled Taylor's masonic medal of Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, in 1843.
Taylor is known for purchasing and re-using dies, including those of Matthew Boulton's mint at Soho, Birmingham.
Medals
Taylor was a prolific engraver of medals, producing commemorative medals for over sixty organisations. His firm appears to have produced virtually all the medals in London during the mid-nineteenth century. He also issued a medal for the Melbourne Regatta in 1868.
Organisational medals
He produced commemorative medals for the first congress of the British Archaeological Association in 1844 in silver (12 shillings) and bronze (6 shillings). He designed a prize medal for the Royal Photographic Society. This medal featured a bust of Prince Albert on the obverse, with a motif of the 'Chariot of the Sun' on the reverse. He produced prize medals for the Royal Microscopical Society, featuring John Quekett on the obverse and a wreath with a blank space for a name on the reverse. Smaller organisations included: Crystal Palace Choir; the Arial Club, featuring a swimmer on the obverse; for the London Swimming Club; for John o'Gaunt's Bowmen; for Sydenham Industrial Exhibition.
Taylor also worked internationally, engraving a medal for the Timaru Agricultural & Pastoral Association, New Zealand, which featured a cow, a horse, a sheep and a pig on the obverse.
Commemorative medals
Taylor designed the medal commemorating the opening of the Thames Tunnel in 1843, as well as a medal commemorating Charles Green's balloon flight from London to Weilberg in 1836. He also produced a bronze medal commemorating the coronation of Queen Victoria.
In 1851, Taylor produced commemorative medal for the Great Exhibition by striking them inside Crystal Palace itself and supposedly producing 400,000.
Memorial medals
Memorial medals were also produced by Taylor - he produced one such piece, in the style of Pistrucci, as a memorial to Taylor Coombe, who was Keeper of Antiquities at the British Museum. He engraved a medal of William Carey for another London medallist, W Griffin, who he also produced a temperance medal for, as well as another featuring St Luke. He engraved a medal of James William Gilbart, banker, who appears to have commissioned the work as a form of publicity to celebrate both his and the banks achievements.