Tayler Brother's Photographers

by David McGrory 

At the bottom of many drawers and cupboards in homes across Coventry and Warwickshire are old family photographs. Many would have been taken by the Tayler Brothers, a firm founded in 1868 by Charles Bartlett Tayler and continued by his sons Ernest and Julian. Julian brought the family firm to Coventry in 1912 to a shop at 20 Primrose Hill Street, Hillfields, and it is recorded that over the following seven years he took 50,000 photographs in the building.

His brother Ernest, a Marxist, married Emily and lived a Bohemian lifestyle, and their son Ernest Julian, named after his father and uncle, would later follow in their footsteps to run the photographic business. Julian was a generous brother and set up his sister-in-law Emily in a shop in Raglan Street (or East Street) called the Dainty Shop - a chocolate and candy shop which specialised in, amongst other things, Fry's and Cadbury's chocolates.

His own wife meanwhile, a craft worker, was based in the Primrose Hill Street studio and exhibited her handy work alongside her husband's photographs. Julian, like his brother Ernest, was a political animal, and was a keen socialist for 40 years. He left Coventry for Letchworth in 1922, set up another photographic studio and became a prominent member of the Letchworth Labour Party.

Meanwhile back in Coventry, the family business was run from 1919 by his nephew Ernest Julian, who had just returned from fighting in the East and France while serving in the Royal Field Artillery. Ernest was known as a clever photographer, an excellent driver, and somewhat impulsive, having on one occasion turned up at Letchworth at two in the morning, after popping out in his baby Austin motor car. Ernest's impulsiveness however led to his demise, since at Stonebridge one night in July 1930 he was killed. It appears that he, along with his brother Tom and friend Harry Danes, had gone on a jaunt around Warwick and Leamington. They headed towards Birmingham and were overtaking a lorry when a car coming in the opposite direction dazzled Ernest causing him to misjudge the situation and clip the front wheel of the lorry, which sent his lightweight vehicle into a roll. Only Tom and Harry survived after sustaining serious injuries.

From David McGrory, writing in the Coventry Evening Telegraph on 28th September 2002.

This page was last updated 29/03/03

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