ALICE TAYLOR
Effigy of a child, near the North Door
of Romsey Abbey

Little Alice died in 1843 of scarlet fever at the age of two years and five months. Her grieving father kept her memory alive with this life-size model of his daughter lying asleep with a rosebud in her hand, broken at the stem. It is said that when she fell ill her father brought her a rose from the garden and she was still clutching it when she died. She had only been ill four days. The effigy is a charming, if sentimental, tribute. A contemporary wrote: The monument is a pure piece of poetry ... Romsey has reckon to he proud of Mr. Taylor. He has the hand of an artist and the lender susceptibility of a poet.

The Biblical quotation (Is it well with the child? It is well) comes from II Kings, chapter 4, where the story is told of how the prophet Elisha brought back to life the son of a Shunnamite woman who had given him hospitality.

A slice of Victorian history is brought to life by the figure of this long-dead child. Alice was the second daughter and third child of Dr. Francis Taylor and his wife Jemima. They lived at Lansdowne House in Church Street, a large house now used as offices.

Dr. Taylor was born in Hull in 1811 and came to Romsey as assistant to a Dr. John Reddome. It is believed that he married Dr. Beddome's daughter. By the time of the 1841 census they had a daughter Fanny, aged two, and a son William, aged 10 months. Alice must have been bom soon after the census was taken.

Ten years later in the 1851 census there were six children at home. Fanny, Frank, Jemima, Arabella, Ann and George. William, then aged 10, for some reason was absent but it is known that he later became a doctor like his father and lived at Cheltenham.

In all, there were 10 children born to (he parents but only five survived into adult life. Even in a doctor's household in the Victorian era there were few remedies for illness other than trying to improve a patient's natural resistance to disease. The Hampshire Chronicle of 13 January 1844 spoke of the long continued wet and foggy weather which had been very injurious to the health of some inhabitants of the town and noted that a number of children had lately died of scarlet fever. One of the victims was Alice who had died the previous month on 10th December. Some years later her eleven-year-old sister, Arabella, died from complications after measles. High mortality and large families were typical of the Victorians, but three sisters lived to a good age and one of them, Jemima, was 91 when she died in 1933, so so linking the Victorian era with our own.

Dr. Taylor was a man of parts. He was a sound doctor and surgeon as well as an accomplished sculptor. He was also a keen churchman, alderman and Justice of the Peace and was mayor of Romsey in 1854 and 1855. In 1851, only four years after chloroform was first introduced he used it to extract three teeth from a cook and subsequently used it successfully for a confinement. (Was the cook, perhaps, a guinea pig?) He invented an automatic earth closet: when the seat was depressed and released, it operated a ratchet which deposited a quantity of earth in the appropriate place. A further example of his inventiveness is referred to in The Hampshire Chronicle of 6 July 1844: Mr. Taylor, surgeon, who invented some time since a simple and successful instrument for feeding infant children, has received a very satisfactory testimonial from the Palace, in the nursery of which it has been employed, as well as Her Majesty 's permission to style his invention. 'Taylor's Royal India Ruhher luhes for Feeding Infants'.

Francis Taylor died in 1870 at the age of 59 and his son Frank took over his practice. Frank continued to live at Lansdowne House with two of his sisters who became responsible for the book-keeping. In those days before the N.H.S. every doctor had some problems over collecting his fees and some bills were marked 'Hopeless' or 'No good'.

The two sisters appear to have been strait-laced. They were against public amusements and objected to the annual carnival on the ground that it led to drunkenness. Young Frank by contrast was a wag with a reputation for using strong language. He wrote an irreverent poem entitled 'The Parson's Love of Money'. His shocked .sisters tried to suppress it but it was preserved by a friend.

The first and last verses read:

Money oh money thy praises I sing.
Thou art my saviour, my God and my king.
'tis thee that 1preach for and thee that I pray
And make a collection thrice each Sabbath day.

In the cold silent earth I may soon be laid low
To sleep with the rest who went long ago.
1 shall lay there in peace till the great resurrection
Then be first on my feet to make a collection.

He surely did not have the Victorian vicars ofRomsey in mind, for they were most generous to the abbey and to the poor of the town, sometimes paying their doctor's fees for them.

In spite of his sharp tongue, Frank Taylor was loved and respected and was a favourite with the children. The practice covered an area six or seven miles round Romsey and the doctor would ride or drive out in his trap, wearing a frock coat and tile hat, until his death in 1904.

Alice, with eight of her nine brothers and sisters, is buried in the Botley Road cemetery. Her effigy is a poignant reminder that in past times death was a frequent visitor in nearly every home. Looking at her, we can only echo the words on her monument: Is it well with the child? It is well.

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