Tom Taylor (1817–80)

Playwright, classics scholar, lawyer, and public servant. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1842–4; professor of English, London University, 1845. Called to the bar, 1846. Assistant secretary to the Board of Health; later, assistant secretary to the sanitary department of the Local Government Board, 1850–54; secretary, 1854–71. Editor of Punch, 1874–80. In thirty-five years, more than seventy of his plays appeared in principal London theatres.