Mary Taylor (women's rights advocate)

Mary Taylor (1817–1893) an early advocate for women's rights, was born in Gomersal, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England.

Mary Taylor's father Joshua, a cloth manufacturer, and his wife Anne had six children of which she was the fourth. Her father, a radical and member of the Methodist New Connexion, was bankrupted in 1826, but determined to repay his creditors.

Mary was an impulsive, clever child who shared her father's independent traits. She met Ellen Nussey and Charlotte Brontë in 1831 at Roe Head School in Mirfield where they became firm lifelong friends despite having opposing views. At school Taylor, while quiet, was defiant, standing by her opinions and practising what she preached. Brontë, a visitor to the Taylor's home, Red House, described the family's company as 'one of the most rousing pleasures I have ever known'.

Taylor's father died in December 1840 and Mary embarked on a European tour before joining her sister at the Château de Koekelberg, a finishing school in Brussels. Her correspondence with Charlotte Brontë described what she had seen on her travels inspiring her to go to Brussels in 1842. After her sister's death in October 1842, Taylor went to Germany where, challenging established convention, she found employment teaching young men.

In March 1845 Taylor followed her youngest brother, Waring, who had arrived in Wellington in 1842, to New Zealand. After her cousin Ellen arrived in 1849, the women built a house and opened a drapery and clothing shop. When Ellen died in 1851, Taylor bought her cousin's share and the shop continued successfully selling goods sent from England. She never intended to remain in New Zealand and sold the shop that had provided her with a good income in a way a middle-class woman would have found impossible in England. She returned to Yorkshire before 1860.

When she was financially secure Taylor returned to Gomersal. High Royd, the house built for her, was her home for the rest of her life. She made annual visits to Switzerland where, aged almost 60 in 1875, she led a party of five women on an expedition to climb Mont Blanc and they published Swiss Notes by Five Ladies, an account of their ten-week adventure.

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