John George Taylor Didn’t Forget Orphans

‘British Columbia Protestant Orphans Home, founded 1875. This site and building were purchased and erected by bequest of John G. Taylor, A.D. 1903.’

This worn cornerstone of what became Victoria’s Bishop Cridge Centre for the Family was replaced 20 years ago after being removed for display during the centre’s centenary. Likely few had taken notice of the old marker which, ever so scantily, honours the man whose bequest originally made the orphanage possible.

For that matter, little more is known of the onetime city policeman than is noted on the memorial. Only one historian has seen fit to record something of John George Taylor for posterity—and his tribute is tenuous.

Journalist D.W. Higgins met Taylor in the course of his work.
The two became friends. For all his respect for Taylor, however, Higgins held something in reserve so far as the detective was concerned. This slight wariness made itself apparent in 1904, some 13 years after Taylor’s death, when Higgins wrote a series of reminiscences for the Victoria Colonist.

“Nearly every old resident knew John George Taylor. He was alive as late as 1891 and his bones lie at Ross Bay [Cemetery]. He was an Irishman but he came here from Australia in 1859.
“He had been a miner, a rebel, a constable and a member of the Gold Escort in that colony and possessed remarkable detective instincts. He was one of the most intelligent men who ever joined the Victoria police force, and being strong and fearless, resourceful and keen-witted as a razor-blade, he was generally selected to inquire into cases that [demanded these qualities].”

But…
Which wasn’t to say that Taylor had the “virtues, the perspicacity and the shrewdness of a Sherlock Holmes… No Taylor was not a Sherlock Holmes… Our local detective was a living, breathing reality.

“He did his work in the full sight of all. His methods were not always clean and the ends he aimed at were not always credible nor were they conceived in the public interest, but he was a shrewd, calculating, observing and brave person who could read a man as others read a book and who generally turned the information he gathered to the best account for himself.

“By the exercise of these facilities he accumulated a snug little fortune and for the last 10 years of his life, as age crept upon him, he was enabled to live in comfort and luxury and when he died…he did not forget the orphan.”

A Veteran of the ‘Ballarat War’
A native of Dundalk, Ireland, Taylor participated in the California gold rush in 1849 then Australia’s great rush two years later. There, he participated in the ‘Ballarat War,’ a miners’ rebellion against an obnoxious tax, and experienced “adventurers of a most startling character, which he was accustomed to recall to his friends in the most graphic and thrilling terms”.

After seven years he moved to Victoria. As a policeman, he soon demonstrated his natural abilities of deduction and his courage. Promoted to sergeant, he was instrumental in breaking up a notorious gang of burglars, among many other accomplishments, and broadened his horizons by running for, and winning, a seat on city council.

With 1891 and Taylor’s passing at the age of 67, he left what was a very sizable sum for the day to the orphanage fund. Higgins alluded to Taylor’s financial acumen but carefully let his readers draw their own conclusions as to just how the detective established his comfortable retirement fund on a policeman’s pay: “…Taylor brought some money here and during the 15 years he remained on the force he added to it by means known only to detectives and their patrons, so that when he died he had the tidy sum of $30,000.”

You can multiply that by at least 20 in today’s values.
It was Taylor’s fortune that proved the essential fund for a building with “room enough for the [orphans’] accommodation, out of the dust and noise of the city itself and surrounded by grounds in which the little ones will find scope to play and be happy.

“Such a home has been the dream of many of those who have the interest of the Orphanage at heart,” continues a news account of the day, “but it seemed a very long way off until a year ago. Then one of those who had often showed his substantial friendship was called away by death, and his will, when read, was found to provide the way for the establishment of a home such as would be an honour to his philantrhopy and generosity.”

At the time of the orphanage’s founding, the Colonist paid tribute to the enigmatic detective: “The memory of this kind-hearted man will be honoured as long as the building erected by his many endeavours. No man, no matter what his position or his talents may be, need wish for a nobler monument.”

So how did Taylor make his money?
These many years after, one can’t help but wonder which of, or combination of, John George Taylor’s “many endeavours” enabled him to establish such a tidy nest-egg.
Not that it really matters now. We will just have to accept that, as described by his friend Higgins, he was shrewd, observant and fearless.

Whatever his failings may have been, one fact can’t be denied: He didn’t forget the orphan.
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Western Canada’s Oldest Registered Non-Profit Society
It should be noted that the Cridge Centre for the Family is western Canada’s oldest registered non-profit society and has a stellar pedigree.