Mary Taylor was one of Charlotte Bronte’s best friends. She was a businesswoman, and author, and an ardent and vocal feminist. She had good business sense mixed with an adventurous spirit, which let her to study in several European countries, sell cattle and run a store in New Zealand, and climb Mont Blanc in Switzerland. Over time, her fame has been eclipsed by Charlotte’s, but Mary was so much more than just “Charlotte’s friend.”
Mary was born in 1817. Her parents sent her to Roe Head School, where Mary met Charlotte Bronte and Ellen Nussey. The three friends were inseparable. Of the three, Mary was the most restless and the most intellectual. Charlotte was the most imaginative. Ellen was the most empathetic and emotionally supportive of the three. The three friends exchanged letters throughout their entire lives.
When Mary’s father died, the family fell into financial trouble. Mary was determined to earn her own living. Furthermore, she rejected the pursuits that were most commonly open to women of her class. She told Charlotte that she “cannot and will not be a governess, a teacher, a milliner, a bonnet-maker, nor a housemaid.” Mary moved to New Zealand in hopes of new economic opportunities.
Mary lived in Wellington, New Zealand with her brother and then with friends. She and her cousin, Ellen Taylor, opened a shop together. Mary enjoyed the work and the shop was very successful. They also bought and sold cattle as well as property. When Mary finally returned to Yorkshire, she was a financially secure woman.
During her Yorkshire years, Mary was a prolific and controversial author whose work was most often found in magazines. She wrote articles in which she championed the idea that women could and should make their own living, and that women should not marry for money. She also fought the prevailing view that a woman’s duty was to sacrifice herself for others.
In addition to the many articles she wrote, Mary wrote two books. Swiss Notes By Five Ladies tells the true story of one of Mary’s trips to Switzerland. Mary organized these trips for herself and her friends every year. The book documents a trip during which the five women, including Mary who was almost sixty years old at the time, climbed Mont Blanc.
Her last book, Miss Miles: or, a Tale of Yorkshire Life Sixty Years Ago was a fictional story that uses the lives of its characters to demonstrate the need for women to have economic opportunities. It took her forty years to write it and was finally published in 1890.
Mary died in 1893 at the age of 76. She never married but seemed to have a happy, prolific life with friends and family. It is in part because of her efforts that it is socially acceptable today for a woman of any class to get a job.
My thanks to:
Teara: Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Swiss Notes is free on Google Play, and so far fantastic, except I think it might be only available for USA readers.
Why have I never heard of her??! Thank you so much, Carrie. Off to look for her books now.
Thanks for this! Never heard of this woman but she IS kickass.
I never heard of her but this is an interesting article on suffrage history. Thanks for the information.
Thank you for this, Carrie S. Of all that I’d ever encountered regarding the Brontes, mention of Miss Taylor was surprisingly absent. Or, perhaps not so surprisingly, in light of her insistence that women should work and not marry for money. Adding to that her staunch belief that women shouldn’t sacrifice themselves for others and she’d have any number of detractors in this day & age as well. Off to read her work…
Fascinating—glad that you called my attention to this important person I’d overlooked (and to her novel). For the memoirs of a more obscure, but really interesting, woman fighting for women’s financial independence, can I suggest The Mamie Papers, letters from Mamie Pinzer, a turn-of-the-century Jewish woman in Philadelphia, to the philanthropist Fannie Ward Howe? Pinzer sought financial independence first by prostitution and then by learning secretarial work, and she had eloquent things to say about the necessity of financial choices and the problems with the ways moral reformers regarded prostitution. She established a social center for women doing sex work, as a way for them to help each other, and also tried to create opportunities for other sorts of work.
Another great woman I had never heard of. Thanks, Carrie!