Mr Taylor, the Oxford detective

One Edwardian provincial detective may have had a short-lived career

One of the places where I’ve struggled to find a community of private detectives is my home city, Oxford. Perhaps this is due to the existence historically of two different police forces - the private university police and the city police, reflecting the city’s two-sided nature - ‘town and gown’.

However, one private detective I have located is a Mr Taylor, who was working as a private detective in the Edwardian era. He advertised in the Oxford Times, but also across the county, in Witney and Bicester, and also in the Oxfordshire Weekly News. One advert he placed in the Oxford Times in 1902 went into detail about what he did - and did not - do:

“Mr Taylor, confidential agent…has studied Evasion of the Law, and can often find a lawful way out of a scrape or difficulty when Solicitors fail. Experience of Finance, Building and Estate Management, Enquiries and Watching…. Money not lent. Simple wills and agreements drawn.”

Elsewhere, Taylor highlighted his ‘extensive legal experience’ and noted that he set up shop in Bicester whenever that town had its market day, hoping to attract market traders in need of help.

Trying to trace Taylor - investigating the investigator - is hard. He advertised between 1902 and 1903, consistently giving his address as 82 Abingdon Road. However, the 1901 census records a John Isaacs and family as living at that address, and in the 1911 census, it is home of china merchant Arthur Greatbatch. The address at Bicester - Elstone House on Sheep Street - was not a private address, but commercial.

However, by a process of elimination, I believe that this private detective was William Taylor, a gardener’s son who was born at Holton, five miles east of the city centre, in 1832. This is because he was listed in various censuses as a local bailiff and a house agent, and the move to private enquiry work would have been a logical one from his previous jobs. It could utilise his legal experience and negotiating skills, and it matches the experience he states in his adverts.

William Taylor’s last known previous job was that of a house agent, and this was given in the 1901 census, when he was living at 34 New Inn Hall Street (part of this street is pictured above). When he died, in 1910, his probate entry listed him as a ‘retired house agent’, but again, this is logical. He may have retired as such around 1901-1902 and then decided to utilise his skills to earn a bit of retirement money by working part-time or temporarily as a private detective. Alternatively, he may not have been able to make a long-term success in this new career, only working in it for a year, and so was listed by his former, more long-term, occupation.

Without the few press advertisements that Taylor made, we would not know of his existence as a private detective. If he was the former house agent, though, this would show a fairly common career trajectory (I have found house agents elsewhere who moved into private enquiry work). What it perhaps suggests is that in Edwardian Oxford, there might not have been enough demand for private detection to enable Taylor to work in the field for more than a year, and this is something that needs a bit more looking into.

Drawing of the New Inn Hall Street Schools, c.1900, by Leonard Stokes. Taken from Wikimedia Commons (public domain).