Thomas and George
Brinscall Roots
The story of Lancashire’s ‘Innovative Taylor Cousins’ begins not in a workshop or high-end showroom, but in the rugged, hardworking landscape of Brinscall. At the heart of the family were two brothers, John and George Taylor Snr. Living in an era of transition, the brothers represented two pillars of Victorian life: the land and the road. John, a farmer and bailiff at Brinscall Mill Farm maintained the steady transitions of the soil, while George Snr served as a coachman and stud groom for the proprietors, a role requiring both discipline and a keen understanding of the era’s primary mode of transport.
Though their own lives were defined by manual labour and service, the brothers provided a stable foundation in the shadow of the local calico print-works. It was here, amidst the steam and gears of the industrial North, that their sons, Thomas and George, would spend their youth. While the fathers worked with livestock and harvests, they raised sons who would eventually look toward the future, trading the plow and the carriage for the wireless signal and the patented invention.
Different Paths
George was three years older than Thomas and grew up on Dick Lane in Brinscall, whilst Thomas lived close by at Brinscall Mill Farm, once the home of their grandfather. As older boys they both worked at the nearby calico print-works, George as a junior clerk and Thomas as a labourer.
In September of 1901 when Thomas was aged fourteen, he and his family emigrated to Canada. Thomas lived across the pond for a period of ten years before returning to England. Sometime around 1912 Thomas completed a Postmaster General examination and gained his certificate in wireless proficiency. This allowed Thomas to serve as wireless operator with the Merchant Navy throughout WWI, inspiring a further interest in radios, which he continued to immerse himself into as a profession after the war.
Whilst Thomas worked at radio’s, George married and moved to Preston where he lived on Grafton Street, just off Fishergate Hill. It was there that he began his business ventures under the company name ‘George Taylor (Preston) LTD’. The business specialised originally in electro-plating and enamelling and then later moved predominantly towards drapery.
George’s first drapery shop was in the Miller Arcade, Preston branded the ‘Nottingham Remnant Company’ selling lace and embroideries. The source of Georges inspiration may have come from his mother, who had a drapery business herself in Brinscall and worked within the profession until her death in 1915.
Thomas’s legacy in engineering has been passed on through the family and has always been a source of fascination for me personally. I came across George’s story whilst researching his father George Snr, the coachman who was Thomas’s Uncle. I sensed similarities between the two cousins and was thrilled when I came across evidence of George’s pioneering spirit and interest in invention.
These little stories of achievement found in family histories, as well as impressing, can invoke motivation and perhaps mirror similar qualities within ourselves of perseverance, dedication or revolutionary ideas.
My research showed Thomas and George to be clever intellectuals, who undeterred by their modest rural beginnings allowed themselves to be swept along in life by a venturesome bright idea. They both relished in the adventure that came with dedicated hard work and both men by the end of their lives had achieved impressive innovative accomplishments; certainly worth remembering and retelling for future generations, as well as to pay homage to two of Lancashire’s lesser known trailblazers.
The Pinnacle of Invention
Thomas
After the war, Thomas concentrated his work around radio’s, working as an electrical engineer living in Bamber Bridge. Aged thirty-seven, Thomas married Lilian, a dressmaker from Preston and moved to Junction Cottage, then a 3-bed house adjoining Preston junction station.
Thomas’s intense enthusiasm for working with radio’s continued to bring in business. As well as charging the old accumulator battery’s, Thomas began to build and sell his own radio’s. His wife Lilian described that no two sets were made alike. They were each unique so that they could not be copied or repaired by anyone else. As well as a talented engineer, Thomas clearly had a good business brain to match.
George
“The Biggest Shopping Event Ever Known In Preston”
Meanwhile, in Preston – George Taylor had expanded his business to begin a new era in ladies outfitting as proprietor of ‘Nottingham House’. It is fair to say that George and his business had struck success in Preston, selling the smartest fashions of the day in fur trimmed coats, beautifully embellished dresses, sportswear and millinery, whilst advertising as sole agents for the famous Matita Models.
On Saturday May 23rd, 1925, Nottingham House at No.8 Fishergate Preston had its Grand Opening Day.
A beautifully predominant building, Nottingham House was spread over three floors and decorated with exquisite window displays of quality lace, shawls, elegant evening gowns, delicate hosiery and more. According to a post on the Blog Preston website, the third floor was used as a sewing room where in house gowns were made.
“Coats, Gowns, Lingerie. Everything the smart woman needs, and everything in irreproachable taste and style, distinguishes the service offered at Nottingham House. From Handkerchiefs to Gowns, from Gloves to Evening Wraps, you will find a subtle distinction in style and quality which makes all the difference between goods that are merely fashionable and those which might rightly be called exclusive.” – November 1932
Exciting Endeavours
George wasn’t the only ‘Taylor’ in the town making a name for himself through adventurous enterprise. Thomas, who had continued confidently in his radio business working from an outbuilding at the back of his house, had also taken on an exciting new project. Unlike George’s place of business, Thomas’s workshop was a little more low key, well, aside from the tall TV aerial that could be seen from miles around that is!
Thomas had become fascinated with the science of early television and worked day and night at perfecting his own television sets. His wife later described how people would come and visit to see his early television experiments. These experiments in Thomas’s modest workshop had successfully picked up Baird’s experimental programmes sent out from Crystal Palace before it burnt down in 1936. Thomas and his family later moved to ‘Briarswood’, a bungalow with land on Cocker Lane in Leyland where he continued his engineering experiments.
“Preston Business Heads Invention”
Whilst Thomas was experimenting at home with this new and exciting technology… George had also turned his attention towards an inventive idea. In 1935 within the Central Hall of Westminster, George was awarded a Bronze Medal at the International Exhibition of Inventions. The award was given for his patented amendment and improvement to the ‘safety razor’. It was reported that George formed a company with offices in Preston to market this new style of safety razor. Nottingham House had within it a renowned salon which perhaps played some part in George’s inspiration. A copy of George’s patent application can be seen below. A Gillette type razor with guard pad made of rubber or rubberized material. The patented invention concerns a clever ‘snap’ device, whereby the blade is automatically fixed and released without screwing.
As well as a dedicated businessman, George was a liberal in politics and a member of the Preston Reform Club. He was also a Freemason of the Concord Lodge and lived the greater part of his life in Penwortham. George’s success in business afforded him the luxury of travelling, which he enjoyed, specifically spending a lot of time in the South of France in the later years of his life. George was known to have a bright and cheerful character which made him popular in business and social circles.
Thomas continued to work on his television sets throughout the late 1930’s with the intention of selling the sets that he was developing once they were finished. Thomas had perfected the clarity of the reception on his large television set to where you could see details of a ring on a televised person’s finger. Among the congratulations received for his skills was one from the ‘father of television’ himself, Mr. John Logie Baird, who praised Thomas for being the first person in the Northwest to pick up pictures on his homemade receiver. The renowned Scottish inventor gifted Thomas a television set, which was described by the family as being much smaller than the one Thomas had built for himself.
In 1939 at the start of the second World War, Thomas put his pioneering project on hold and turned again to his radios as a volunteer for the British military intelligence. Thomas’s war story can be found in the ‘Wartime’ section of this website. By the time the war had ended, Thomas had grown increasingly weak as a result of partial gastrectomy surgery, and he sadly passed away in September 1946 aged sixty without seeing his plans for homemade televisions fully realised.
“What became of the Taylor prototype – the TV set into which went all the skill and ingenuity, the brainwaves and heart-aches of the wireless wizard? It was sold by auction at Leyland about a year after his death. It went to someone in the Blackburn District where perhaps it still gives service.” – Lancashire Evening Post January 1953
Are we related?
Sources & Further Reading:
- Jordan & Sons Ltd, company registration agents 1914
- E.G Hothersall & Sons auction notice 1925
- A Safety Razor Compendium: The Book
- Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office
- Index of Patents Issued from the United States Patent Office
- Blog Preston – Nostalgic 1980’s Preston revealed in pictures (part 6)
- The British Newspaper Archive
- Lancashire Records Office
- Local resident/family recollections