Clementia Taylor

Who was Clementia Taylor?

Clementia Taylor was an English women's rights activist and radical.

Clementia was born in Brockdish, Norfolk, one of twelve children. Her family was Unitarian, and the young Clementia was employed as a governess to the daughters of a local Unitarian minister who ran a boy's boarding school. In 1842 Clementia married Peter Alfred Taylor; the cousin of one of her pupils. Taylor was later the Liberal Member of Parliament for Leicester.

In 1863 Peter Taylor bought Aubrey House in the Campden Hill district of Holland Park in West London. The Taylors opened the Aubrey Institute in the grounds of the house; the institute gave young people the chance to improve a poor education they might have had. The lending library and reading room of the institute had over 500 books.

The Taylors were closely involved in the movement for Italian unification and Giuseppe Mazzini was a frequent visitor to Aubrey House. Giuseppe Garibaldi stayed at the house for a few days during his celebrated 1864 visit to London.