Maria Taylor (née Angus)

Owner of a half-share in St Faith’s estate, St Ann, Jamaica, inherited from her father Charles Angus. Married to Nathaniel Taylor and sister of Jane Ronald Crawford (both q.v.).

1. Born 13/08/1802 and baptised 27/04/1803 in Holy Trinity, Liverpool to Charles Angus and his wife Maria. Her father was a Liverpool merchant and slave-trader. Charles Angus was the eldest son of William Angus, a hairdresser in Stranraer. One of the executors of the will of William Angus was his second cousin, also called William Angus, who in 1811 was a merchant’s clerk in Liverpool.

2. By 1808 her mother had died and on 02/09/1808 her father was indicted (and acquitted) of the murder of the children’s governess Margaret Burns who was also their deceased mother’s half-sister. Her father had been having an affair with Margaret and the charges were of inducing an abortion and murder through the use of oil of savin, a poison.

3. Married Nathaniel Taylor, an army officer on half-pay and farmer, at some point before 1825. They had 11 children born in Inch and Stranraer between 1825 and 1841.

4. Living at Belmont, Wigtownshire, in the census of 1851, age 48, with her husband Nathaniel, ‘Lieut Army and Half pay Farmer of (22 Acres) 2 Labs’, age 55, 11 children and 2 female servants. No sign of her death in Scotland but Nathaniel was a widower by the time of his death in 1867; Glenn Chandler gives a death-date of 07/07/1859.

T71/857 St Ann claim no. 836 (St Faith’s). T71/1606 letter from Nathaniel Taylor, Stranraer, dated 05/05/1835 seeking information on the status of this claim for St Faith’s Penn: ‘Beyond that the attorney has been exceedingly dilatory with his correspondence else I should not have troubled you on this occasion.’ Letter dated 12/09/1835 from Jane Ronald Crawford and Nathaniel Taylor asking for a form for power of attorney for their agent to receive the money. Letter dated 04/11/1835 from Nathaniel Taylor, 19 Pall Mall, stating he had called at the office and was asked to put his request for information in writing.

1. www.familysearch.org batch no. C16106-1. W.H. Dunbar, The Scottish Jurist: Containing Reports of Cases Decided in the Courts of Scotland, and in the House of Lords on Appeal from Scotland (Edinburgh, M. Anderson, 1837), Vol. 9, p. 214.

2. William Jones, The Trial of Charles Angus, Esq. on an Indictment for the Willful Murder of Margaret Burns (Liverpool, William Jones, 1808). The Law Magazine, or, Quarterly Review of Jurisprudence (London, Saunders and Benning, 1829), Vol. 2 pp. 34-35.

3. See separate entry for Nathaniel Taylor. Births and christenings of children at www.familysearch.org batch nos. C11886-4 and C11899-4.

4. 1851 census online. General Register Office for Scotland, Deaths 1867 886 009; Glenn Chandler, Burning poison: the murder that rocked Liverpool (Lea Valley Press, 2000) p. 175.