pedro on 22 Feb 2006  •  Link

L&M Companion

(Up to Feb 1663 in Diary)

(d. 1670). He was one of the foremost shipbuilders of his day. He built the London in1657 and her successor the Loyal London1666. Like many shipbuilders he was unversed in theory of naval architecture. He served as Master-Shipwright at Chatham under the Commonwealth until he was replaced in 1660 at the instigation of the Duchess of Albemarle by Phineas Pett. He then resumed business as a private shipbuilder and timber merchant with a yard at Wapping.

Wim van der Meij on 10 Nov 2006  •  Link

Peculiar: Warrington thinks this Taylor is Silas Tailor: "described by A. Wood as alias Domville; he was a native of Shropshire and educated at Oxford, and became a captain in the Parliament forces. Subsequently to the Restoration he was appointed Commissary of Ammunition at Dunkirk and in 1665 made Keeper of the King's Stores at Harwich. He died 4th November 1678.

Bill on 16 Oct 2016  •  Link

"Peculiar: Warrington thinks..."

As usual, Warrington takes his notes from 1854 edition of Pepys diary.

Terry Foreman on 9 Dec 2016  •  Link

Capt. John Taylor - L&M Companion (1663-on)

In 1663 Pepys in his Navy White Book records receiving money from him wrapped up in a handkerchief. In the war he was Navy Commissioner at Harwich, leaving Pepys to see to his own yard's business with the navy. His appointment in 1665 gave rise to opposition on te double ground that he was a merchant and a 'fanatic'. But he proved to be a vigorous administrator, and gave satisfaction in administering a yard which, because of the location of the naval campaigns, had to cope with a sudden and large access of business. His letters to the Board in 1667 urging the care of starving workmen and seamen are strikingly eloquent.

San Diego Sarah on 13 Dec 2016  •  Link

FINALLY, the settlement of the freight debate:

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Wednesday 16 December 1663
Up, and with my head and heart full of my business, I to my office, and there all the morning, where among other things to my great content Captain Taylor brought me 40l., the greater part of which I shall gain to myself after much care and pains out of his bill of freight, as I have at large set down in my book of Memorandums.

I wonder what Pepys' Book of Memorandums is ... an official accounting record for the Navy, or Pepys' personal log of reminders of what's owed to him by whom. Keeping double books can be confusing.

San Diego Sarah on 12 Mar 2021  •  Link

In 1630 the Bourne family shipyard, the “old Bell” Dockyard which occupied the site of the present Wapping Basin entrance to the docks, was leased to Mary Bourne Whare’s son-in-law, John Hoxton, and to John Taylor, both master shipwrights.

(This was probably the John Taylor who later became a prominent shipbuilder, and in Cromwell’s time built the London, which was accidentally blown up off the Nore in 1665 with considerable loss of life. Also in 1665, John Taylor was chosen by Charles II to build her successor, the Loyal London.)

Early in May 1656 the Navy Commissioners appointed three of their number, Major Nehemiah Bourne, Capt. Francis Willoughby and Capt. John Taylor, to go to Portsmouth to report on the dockyard there.

On 23 May, 1656 they reported that they had surveyed the yard “and find there is convenience for the erecting of a drydock there, at a cost of £3,200 and that it could be extended for £500 more.”

These notes are from a 1952 paper, presented by Capt. William Robert Chaplin, of the Trinity House, London. It contains information about the growth of shipbuilding under James I and Charles I, the Civil War years, shipbuilding in Boston and along the Thames, the history of the Seething Lane offices, Quakers and Puritans, and the characters Commissioner "Major" Nehemiah Bourne was related to by marriage (the entire Trinity House Brotherhood were his Puritan in-laws and cousins from Wapping during the Cromwell years).

And yes, Pepys and the Diary get some mentions.
https://www.colonialsociety.org/n…