Taylor, Harriet (Née Hardy, later Mrs John Stuart Mill) (1807–1858)

Abstract

Harriet Taylor was born in London on 8 October 1807 and died at Avignon on 3 November 1858. A Unitarian doctor’s daughter, she was beautiful, mainly self-educated and of considerable intelligence. In 1826 she married a Unitarian wholesale druggist, John Taylor, and had two sons and one daughter, Helen, who became a champion of women’s suffrage and higher education. Harriet, who had literary ambitions, contributed briefly and anonymously book reviews, verses and articles to the Unitarian Monthly Repository. In 1830 she met John Stuart Mill, also a contributor to the Repository. Friendship, based on mutual concern for the poor and the inferior status of women, developed into love. Their indiscreet public appearances and travels caused a scandal. In 1851, some two years after the death of John Taylor, who had reluctantly condoned the situation, they married. Mill praised Harriet in extravagant terms, which his friends, admirers and subsequent critics found false and ludicrous, particularly the inscription on her tombstone, ending were there but a few hearts and intellects like hers this earth would already become the hoped-for heaven.