Charlotte Brontë’s most intelligent school friend.
Quiet but very self-possessed, she was an admirable
businesswoman, with a way of going straight to the point
that was at times disconcerting … Miss Taylor was indeed
a remarkable woman – probably in her mental endowments
the strongest woman who came within the Brontë circle.
Cleckheaton Guardian, 24 December 1903
Mary Taylor’s Wellington store
‘I have set up shop!’ Mary Taylor wrote to her friend, the novelist Charlotte Brontë, from Wellington in April 1850. The shop, on the corner of Dixon and Cuba Streets, was typical of the draperies, often started by women, that expanded into department stores. By 1853 it was listed in the Wellington and southern province almanac as one of the city’s ‘principal stores’. It later became James Smith’s, a major Wellington department store until the early 1990s. Taylor reported to Brontë that she was delighted with her business. ‘The best of it is that your labour has some return.’ (Quoted in Joan Stevens, ed., Mary Taylor: friend of Charlotte Brontë. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1972, pp. 92–93.)
Early New Zealand stores
New Zealand’s department stores mostly grew from small drapery shops in the second half of the 19th century. They met the need for clothing, footwear and household goods in the new settler communities.
Many of these stores were begun by women. In 1849 Mrs Bain, a widow, opened a Dunedin drapery which was later known as Brown, Ewing. In 1850 Mary and Ellen Taylor founded a Wellington drapery, which after changes of address and ownership became the department store James Smith’s.
Mary’s Novel – Miss Miles
Mary began writing her only novel, Miss Miles, or a Tale of
Yorkshire Life 60 Years Ago, in New Zealand but had difficulty
finishing it:
‘I began to read some pages of ‘my book’ intending to
write some more but went on reading for pleasure. I
often do this and find it very interesting indeed. It does
not get on fast … It’s full of music, poverty, disputing,
politics, and original views of life.’ (MT to CB, 1852)
Finally, and probably at her own expense, Miss Miles was published in 1890. Set
in industrial area like the Spen Valley, it tells the stories of four women and
contains many of Mary’s ideas about women’s position in society.
Joan Bellamy’s richly detailed and fascinating
biography of Mary Taylor
More Precious than Rubies
was published in 2002, after more than a decade of
research into Mary’s life and analysis of her writings.
More Precious than Rubies is available from Red House, price £11.50 plus
UK p&p:£1.50; Europe p&p:£4.00; USA/Canada p&p:£7.80; New Zealand/
Australia/Japan p&p: £9.20; (Surface mail outside Europe £2.10).
(ISBN 1 902645 28 6)
