John Edward Taylor was the founder of the newspaper, later to become The Guardian.
Background
He was born at Ilminster, Somerset, England, to Mary Scott, the poet, and John Taylor, a Unitarian minister who moved after his wife"s death to Manchester with his son to run a school there. John Edward was educated at his father"s school and at Daventry Academy.
Education
He was apprenticed to a cotton manufacturer in Manchester and later became a successful merchant.
Career
After the death of John Potter, the Potter brothers formed a second Little Circle group, to begin a campaign for parliamentary reform. This called for the better proportional representation in the Houses of Parliament from the rotten boroughs towards the fast-growing industrialised towns of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Salford. After the petition raised on behalf of the group by Absalom Watkin, Parliament passed the Reform Acting 1832.
Taylor witnessed the Peterloo massacre in 1819, but was unimpressed by its leaders, writing:
He was also editor of the paper from 1861 to 1872.
Membership
A moderate supporter of reform, from 1815 Taylor was a member of a group of Nonconformist Liberals, meeting in the Manchester home of John Potter, termed the Little Circle. Other members of the group included: John Brotherton (preacher). Archibald Prentice (later editor of the Manchester Times).
John Shuttleworth (industrialist and municipal reformer).
Absalom Watkin (parliamentary reformer and anti corn law campaigner). William Cowdray Jnr (editor of the Manchester Gazette).
Thomas Potter (later first mayor of Manchester) and Richard Potter (later Member of Parliament for Wigan). In 1821 the members of the Little Circle excluding Cowdroy backed John Edward Taylor in founding the, published by law only once a week, which Taylor continued to edit until his death.