Meadows Taylor

Philip Meadows Taylor (25 September 1808 – 13 May 1876) was a British officer and administrator in the Hyderabad state, and later British India. He was also a novelist, best known for his 1839 bestseller Confessions of a Thug, and an amateur archaeologist. After Confessions of a Thug, Taylor wrote a series of historical romance novels set against the backdrop of important events in Indian history.

Biography

Taylor was born in Liverpool on 25 September 1808 where his father, Philip Meadows Taylor, was a merchant. His mother was Jane Honoria Alicia, daughter of Bertram Mitford of Mitford Castle, Northumberland.

In 1824, at the age of 15, Taylor was sent out to India to become a clerk to a Bombay merchant, Mr Baxter. However, Baxter was in financial difficulties and, with the help of family connections, Taylor became a lieutenant in the army of the Nizam of Hyderabad in November. In 1826, he obtained civil employment as Assistant Superintendent of Police for the south-western districts of Hyderabad before returning to the Nizam's infantry in 1830. According to Kim A. Wagner, though Taylor variously presented with the rank of captain or colonel, it remains unclear whether he ever formally held them.

Taylor developed a wide-ranging interest in Indian languages, art, and architecture, and was also an amateur archaeologist and an illustrator. He undertook archaeological explorations of the Hyderabad state between the 1830s and 1850s, and became an influential figure in the early study of megaliths in India. In 1832, Taylor married Mary Palmer of a wealthy Anglo-Indian family.