# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Tayler, Joseph Needham

Layout 4
​TAYLER, C.B. (Rear-Admiral, 1846. f-p., 15; h-p., 36.)
Joseph Needham Tayler, born in 1785 at Devizes, co. Wilts, is only surviving son of the late Sam. Tayler, Esq., Senior Member of the Corporation of that place, who was six times Mayor, and who formed and commanded the “Devizes Loyal Volunteers,” by Sally, daughter of the late Joseph Needham, Esq., M.D., and niece of Henry Needham, Esq., a co-partner with his uncle, Robt. Rogers, in the bank of Child and Co. His eldest brother, Samuel, a Lieutenant in the 13th Light Dragoons, was killed in Portugal; another, Thomas, a Major in the Bengal 9th Native Infantry, died in India.
This officer entered the Navy, in July, 1796 (under the auspices of the late Viscount Sidmouth), as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Royal George 100, Capt. Wm. Domett, bearing the flag of Lord Bridport in the Channel; and in April, 1797, was present in the mutiny at Spithead. Removing, in 1799, to the Anson of 46 guns and 327 men, Capt. Philip Chas. Durham, he was occasionally employed in that ship in attendance upon the Royal Family off Weymouth, and was in waiting upon the King in a boat whenever His Majesty went afloat. He assisted also at the capture, 27 April, 1800, of Le Vainqueur letter-of-marque from Bordeaux bound to St. Domingo; and, two days afterwards, of Le Hardi privateer, of 18 guns and 194 men, in company at the time with Le Braave 36, Le Guêpe 18, and Le Druide 36. With Le Braave the Anson had a slight skirmish. On 27 June, 1800, being on her passage with a fleet of transports to Gibraltar and Minorca, she made prize of seven merchant-vessels, protected by the batteries between Tarifa and Algeciras, and covered by the fire of 25 heavy gunboats. Two of the latter, each mounting 2 long 18- pounders and 8 smaller guns, with a complement of 60 men, she subsequently drove upon a rock near the Moorish coast, where Mr. Tayler, in a boat, assisted in taking possession of one of them – the crew having previously jumped overboard. Before this he had been employed in landing arms at Quimper, and in otherwise affording aid to the French royalists. On his return from Minorca he followed Capt. Durham into the Endymion 40; and while in that frigate he visited St. Helena and Lisbon, and contributed to the capture, 13 April, 1801, of La Furie French cutter-privateer of 14 guns and 64 men. He attained the rank of Lieutenant 29 April, 1802; and was next appointed – 18 Oct. 1803, to the Leopard 50, Capts. Jas. Nicoll Morris, Fras. Wm. Austen, and Rich. Raggett – 19 Aug. 1806, for a passage home from Halifax, to the Leander 50, Capt. R. Raggett – 16 March, 1807, to the Maida 74, Capt. Sam. Hood Linzee – in the summer of 1808 (a few months after the latter ship had been paid off), to the Spencer 74, bearing the flag of Hon. Robt. Stopford on the coast of France – 12 April, 1809, for seven months, to the Heroine 32, Capt. Hood Hanway Christian – and, 12 June, 1810, to the Goldfinch 10, Capt. Arden Adderley. In the Leopard, in which ship he served off Boulogne until Napoleon Buonaparte surrendered his intention of invading England, Mr. Tayler assisted at the capture of seven French gun-vessels under a smart fire from the enemy’s batteries, with which he was at other times often engaged. In 1804 he was present in the celebrated Catamaran expedition. He afterwards, 30 March, 1806, sailed from St. Helen’s with six Indiamen, whom the Leopard had been directed to escort to the southward of the Cape de Verde Islands. On their passage out one of the convoy, the Lady Burgess, had the misfortune, at 2 a.m., on 20 April, to strike upon Laten’s Level, a rocky reef near St. Jago, about 200 feet in length and 6 feet under water; and at daylight it was perceived from the Leopard’s mast-head that her masts were gone, and that the sea was breaking furiously over her. Moved at the distressing spectacle Mr. Tayler, volunteering his services, hastened at once in a 6-oared cutter to her assistance, followed by another boat that had been ordered to second his exertions. Arrived at the scene of misery, and braving dangers that threatened him with instant destruction, he contrived, by watching the rise of the sea, and repeatedly throwing a block, with the boat’s halyards and sheets attached to it, over the stump of the bowsprit, to rescue 21 of the sufferers. A tremendous wave at length shivered the ship to atoms, and the remainder of the crew and passengers were precipitated into a still more dreadful surf; and nine only of them were picked up. Including these, however, Mr. Tayler had the satisfaction of saving the lives of 30 persons, who but for him must inevitably have perished; for (and we regret to have to make the statement) the Leopard’s other boat, and a cutter belonging to the Lady Burgess, kept the whole time to leeward, and rendered him not the least support. Two of the Indiaman’s boats, it should be added, had left her, before Mr. Tayler’s advent, with the Captain and several others; but, with this deduction even, 38 were on the awful occasion lost. While on board the Maida Mr. Tayler accompanied in 1807 the expedition sent against Copenhagen; during the siege of which place he landed in command of a party of seamen, was employed in a breaching battery, and performed one or two important services. On the day the Danish capital surrendered he had the honour of dining with General Sir David Baird and in company with Sir Arthur Wellesley, now Duke of Wellington; and on the return of the fleet to England we find him specially employed, as First of the Maida, in dismasting and clearing the prizes of their valuable stores. When subsequently in the Spencer (which ship he dismantled at Plymouth, as Senior-Lieutenant, in Jan. 1809) he was sent on shore at Quimper for the purpose of distributing placards relative to the victories gained over the enemy in the Peninsula. In the Heroine he was present (prior to joining in the attack upon Flushing) at the forcing of the batteries between Flushing and Cadsand, 11 Aug. 1809; and in the Goldfinch he co-operated for a short time with patriots on the north coast of Spain. On 27 Aug. 1810, at which period he had sailed for the West Indies on promotion in the Spitfire sloop, he was advanced to the command of the Sparrow of 16 guns. In that vessel, which he did not join until 2 Feb. 1811, Capt. Tayler was stationed for several months in the Mona Passage for the suppression of piracy; he was then sent home in company with the Elk brig, and a fleet of merchantmen; and on his voyage he re-captured a large ship laden with colonial produce. He returned afterwards to the north coast of Spain; where he soon contrived to distinguish himself by a train of gallant and most important services. At first he was engaged in surveying different harbours, particularly those of Socoa and St. Jean de Luz, and in ascertaining the strength of the different French garrisons along the shore of Biscay. In June, 1812, he contributed to the reduction of Lequeytio; and he assisted next at the destruction of the enemy’s fortifications at Bermeo, Plencia, Galea, Algorta, Begona, El Campillo las Quersas, Xebiles, and Castro. At Plencia Capt. Tayler had the immediate superintendence of the operations. In July, 1812, he took part in the attacks upon Puerta Galletta and Guetaria. He twice forced the passage between the castle of St. Ano and Isle Monro, at the entrance of St. Andero Harbour; he made a reconnaissance of Santona, Guetaria, and Fuenterrabia; he submitted to Sir Home Popham a plan for surprising the batteries along the Bidassoa and destroying the bridge of Irun; and by the erection of batteries and otherwise he co-operated, in May, 1813, in the defence of Castro. On the fall of the latter place he was intrusted with the duty of superintending the embarkation of the guns and the garrison. He had been stationed during the preceding winter near Cape Machicao, and had made prize of a French letter-of-marque and a brig – the latter laden with cotton and rice. About this period Capt. Tayler invented some ​improved sights, combining the elevation and line of sight in one focus, and enabling him to throw shells with such precision that, at the defence of Castro for instance, two out of every three burst in the French batteries. On the night of 10 June, 1613, the Sparrow, in company with the Constant gun-brig, brought off from Lequeytio 1270 officers and men, commanded by Don Miguel Aitola, who at the time was closely pursued by a superior force. In the course of the same month Captain Tayler, being off Castro on the occasion of its evacuation by the French, took possession of the castle; and on again visiting the coast of Spain, after having conveyed to England Capt. Fremantle, the bearer of Lord Wellington’s despatches relative to the battle of Vittoria, he united in the operations against St. Sebastian. His first performance was the erection of a battery on the lighthouse hill, an enterprise, from the physical obstacles that opposed him, of surprising difficulty. On 24 July, for the purpose of favouring a disastrous attempt about to be made by the British to take the city by storm, he was directed, with the small vessels of the squadron, to conduct a false attack on the north side of Mount Orgullo, commonly called the hill of St. Sebastian. While afterwards in the act of levelling a gun at the sailor’s breaching battery Capt. Tayler, by the bursting of a shell, was severely contused and lacerated in the forehead, was dangerously wounded in the groin, and, among other dreadful injuries, had the bones of his left leg so fractured that they protruded through the boot. In this deplorable condition he was conveyed to England and placed, 9 Aug. 1813, in the hospital at Plymouth, where he was for 28 weeks confined to his bed without having it once made up. More than two years, indeed, elapsed before his wounds closed. As some reward, however, for his sufferings and his services he was promoted to Post-rank 16 Aug. 1813; allowed, 12 Nov. 1814, a pension of 200l., increased, 2 Dec. 1815, to 250l, per annum; and nominated a C.B. 8 Dec. 1815. He was also voted by the Patriotic Society the sum of 100l.; and presented by the Corporation of Devizes with the freedom of that borough. His last appointment was to the San Josef 110; in which ship he served at Plymouth, in charge of the Ordinary, from 4 July, 1838, until 10 Aug. 1841. During that period he established on board the San Josef a school for naval gunnery, based upon principles so sound and scientific, that at the end of six months the boys and others who received instruction were considered perfect in the art. He accepted his present rank 1 Oct. 1846.
For his conduct while serving as a Midshipman in the Anson Rear-Admiral Tayler was presented with a sword by Capt. Durham. His exertions in the Leopard off Boulogne procured him the acknowledgments of Lord Keith; and the heroism he displayed on the occasion of the wreck of the Lady Burgess gained him, it is scarcely necessary to mention, the thanks of his Captain, Raggett. He won the approbation of Capt. Linzee for the manner in which, when First-Lieutenant of the Maida, he dismantled and cleared the Danish ships; and for his wonderful zeal and activity in the Sparrow on the north coast of Spain he again received the praises of Lord Keith. In 1811, during his passage home from the West Indies, he framed a code of signals, to be made by means of telegraphic shades instead of flags. He invented also a transporting carriage for ships’ guns, when landed for field service. He took out, in 1838, a patent for having discovered a certain method of abating or lessening the shock or force of the waves of the ocean, lakes, or rivers, and of reducing them to the comparatively harmless state known by the term ‘broken water,’ thereby preventing the injury done to, and increasing the durability of, places exposed to the violent action of the waves; in 1840 he took out a second patent for improvements in steamboats and vessels, making applicable the power of the steam-engine to new and useful purposes of navigation; and in 1843 he took out a further one, in connection with Mr. Wm. Henry Smith, a civil engineer, for improvements in breakwaters, beacons, and sound-alarms, and in landing or transmitting persons over or through strata or obstructions of any nature. The Rear-Admiral, who is the inventor of the floating breakwater proposed to be constructed at Brighton, is at present engaged in preparing for publication a work “On Naval Tactics and Gunnery.” His improvements in gunnery have, as may be inferred from what we have already stated, elicited the repeated thanks of the Board of Admiralty. Agents – Hallett and Robinson.
* ↑ Vide Gaz. 1813, p. 1014.
* ↑ Vide Gaz. 1813, p. 1533.