Waterloo, Ensign, 4th. Reg. Foot and later as main beneficiary edited and published the private papers of Pitt the Younger

Waterloo, silver ball and ring suspension

Ensign, W.S. Taylor, 4th. Reg. Foot

William Stanhope Taylor, son of Thomas Taylor, b. May, 1798,Sevenoaks, Kent, educated Eton, Royal Military College 1811, commd. Ensign 4th Foot 1814, served at Waterloo in the rank of Ensign. Captain 25th Foot 1825, Major h.p.1831

His father, Thomas Taylor married Lady Lucy Rachel Stanhope, daughter of Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope and Lady Hester Pitt, daughter of William Pitt (Pitt the Elder), on 26 April 1796. He lived at Sevenoaks, Kent.

Behind this entry was a tale of some scandal. Major Taylor’s father Thomas was the apothecary to the family of the 3rd Earl Stanhope and who proceeded to elope with the Earl’s youngest daughter Lucy Rachel, (1780-1814) then aged 16. following which her father (Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope) refused to be reconciled to her. 

Pitt (The Youger) as brother in law to Earl Stanhope and uncle & godfather to Lucy Rachel enabled her husband to give up his career as an apothecary and elevated him to the post of  Comptroller-General of Customs . Rachel Stanhope-Taylor  died at Coldharbour, Surrey, in 1814 and was buried at the family seat of Chevening. She and her husband are buried (with a daughter and infant son) in a vault below the Stanhope Chantry at St. Botolph’s Church.

Major William Stanhope Taylor, married 1830, Lady Sarah, dau. of 2nd Marq. of Thomond. His eldest son Lieut. Stanhope B. Taylor was massacred at Jhansi, 8 June 1857 during the mutiny of the 12th N.I. ‘Two havildars and a sepoy hid the latter under a charpoy, but to no purpose.’

Major Taylor was main beneficiary and executor of the John, 2nd Earl Chatham (brother to his late mother and last sibling of 1st Earl, Pitt Younger). Prior to the Earls death in 1835 without direct heir there was correspondence with Wellington recommending Major Taylor to him for post or position and a expressing a desire to nominate  Taylor ‘was his fortune equal to the honour’ to the Earldom to prevent it’s extinction. Whilst the result is unknown Wellington replied welcoming his introduction. A draft letter to the King, never sent, expressing a hope to nominate Taylor to the Earldom. With the death of the the 2nd Earl so ended the Pitt/Earls of Chatham title. In 1839 Taylor edited and published the letters of William Pitt (reprint still current). No more is known until his death in 1858 in Tonbridge, Kent.