James Taylor (Presbyterian minister)

After the parish school he went to the University of Edinburgh, and then to the theological hall of the United Secession Church with a view to the ministry.

By then Scotland had popularly elected educational authorities, an outcome for which Taylor had advocated in synod, in public meetings, and in the lobby of the House of Commons.

[1] Taylor's published writings:[1] Taylor also enlarged and continued Patrick Fraser Tytler's History of Scotland, (1845, 1851, 1863); abridged John Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, 1849; and edited The Family History of England, London, 1870–5, 6 vols.

He contributed articles to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Imperial Dictionary of Biography, and United Presbyterian Magazine, and published some sermons and pamphlets.

was edited by Taylor and published posthumously in 1897-8; it includes a life of Queen Victoria, essays on Victorian science and on the Indian Empire and other colonial territories.