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Robert Taylor (Radical)
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Robert Taylor (Radical)
Reverend Robert Taylor (18 August 1784 – September[citation needed] 1844), was an early 19th-century Radical, a clergyman turned freethinker. His "Infidel home missionary tour" was an incident in Charles Darwin's education, leaving Darwin with a memory of "the Devil's Chaplain" as a warning of the dangers of dissent from Church of England doctrine.
He was the sixth son of John and Elizabeth Taylor, born at Walnut Tree House, Edmonton, London, on 18 August 1784. His father, an ironmonger in Fenchurch Street, London, died when he was young, leaving him under the guardianship of his uncle, Edward Farmer Taylor of Chicken Hall, Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Having been at school under John Adams at Edmonton, he was articled as house pupil to Samuel Partridge, then house surgeon at the Birmingham General Hospital. In Birmingham Taylor underwent a religious conversion after hearing Edward Burn preach.
In 1805 Taylor continued as a medical student, walking Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals in London under Sir Astley Paston Cooper and Henry Cline, and was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons in 1807. Under the influence of Thomas Cotterill, perpetual curate of Lane End, Staffordshire, he decided to study for the church.
Taylor studied at St John's College, Cambridge for three years to qualify as a clergyman. At that time the University of Cambridge was dominated by the established Church of England and most students were preparing for positions in the Anglican church. The Rev. Charles Simeon got Taylor his first curacy, but five years after ordination Taylor abandoned Orthodox Christianity for evangelism and then eccentric anti-clericalism.
Taylor set up a Christian Evidence Society and lectured in London pubs dressed in elaborate vestments, attacking the Anglican liturgy and the barbarities of the Establishment for what he called its "Pagan creed". At this time blasphemy was a criminal offence against the faith "by law established", and he was sentenced to a year in gaol. In his cell he wrote The Diegesis, attacking Christianity on the basis of comparative mythology and attempting to expound it as a scheme of solar myths.
He was an advocate of the Christ myth theory and has been described as a "staunch defender of the mythicist thesis".
Upon his release, with his book newly published, he joined forces with the Radical Richard Carlile for an "infidel home missionary tour". On Thursday 21 May 1829, they arrived in Cambridge, strolled round the colleges, and in the evening attended Holy Trinity Church for a hell-fire sermon by the Rev. Simeon, which they sneered at as "one of the worst imaginable for the morals of mankind".
Next day they rented lodgings for a fortnight above a print shop in Rose Crescent from the unsuspecting landlord William Smith, as their "Infidel Head-Quarters". By noon they had sent a printed challenge to the vice-chancellor, the leading doctors of Divinity, the heads of all the colleges and the Rev. Simeon:
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Robert Taylor (Radical)
Reverend Robert Taylor (18 August 1784 – September[citation needed] 1844), was an early 19th-century Radical, a clergyman turned freethinker. His "Infidel home missionary tour" was an incident in Charles Darwin's education, leaving Darwin with a memory of "the Devil's Chaplain" as a warning of the dangers of dissent from Church of England doctrine.
He was the sixth son of John and Elizabeth Taylor, born at Walnut Tree House, Edmonton, London, on 18 August 1784. His father, an ironmonger in Fenchurch Street, London, died when he was young, leaving him under the guardianship of his uncle, Edward Farmer Taylor of Chicken Hall, Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Having been at school under John Adams at Edmonton, he was articled as house pupil to Samuel Partridge, then house surgeon at the Birmingham General Hospital. In Birmingham Taylor underwent a religious conversion after hearing Edward Burn preach.
In 1805 Taylor continued as a medical student, walking Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals in London under Sir Astley Paston Cooper and Henry Cline, and was admitted a member of the College of Surgeons in 1807. Under the influence of Thomas Cotterill, perpetual curate of Lane End, Staffordshire, he decided to study for the church.
Taylor studied at St John's College, Cambridge for three years to qualify as a clergyman. At that time the University of Cambridge was dominated by the established Church of England and most students were preparing for positions in the Anglican church. The Rev. Charles Simeon got Taylor his first curacy, but five years after ordination Taylor abandoned Orthodox Christianity for evangelism and then eccentric anti-clericalism.
Taylor set up a Christian Evidence Society and lectured in London pubs dressed in elaborate vestments, attacking the Anglican liturgy and the barbarities of the Establishment for what he called its "Pagan creed". At this time blasphemy was a criminal offence against the faith "by law established", and he was sentenced to a year in gaol. In his cell he wrote The Diegesis, attacking Christianity on the basis of comparative mythology and attempting to expound it as a scheme of solar myths.
He was an advocate of the Christ myth theory and has been described as a "staunch defender of the mythicist thesis".
Upon his release, with his book newly published, he joined forces with the Radical Richard Carlile for an "infidel home missionary tour". On Thursday 21 May 1829, they arrived in Cambridge, strolled round the colleges, and in the evening attended Holy Trinity Church for a hell-fire sermon by the Rev. Simeon, which they sneered at as "one of the worst imaginable for the morals of mankind".
Next day they rented lodgings for a fortnight above a print shop in Rose Crescent from the unsuspecting landlord William Smith, as their "Infidel Head-Quarters". By noon they had sent a printed challenge to the vice-chancellor, the leading doctors of Divinity, the heads of all the colleges and the Rev. Simeon:
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