Under the influence of the Martineaus, the Taylors introduced a high-pressure boiler manufactured by John Braithwaite the younger.
After the business of Taylor & Martineau fell away, he in 1827 went into steel manufacture, with Johann Conrad Fischer and Richard Carter Smith.
Joseph Clinton Robertson and Thomas Hodgskin argued the case for rejecting outside subscription, on the grounds that the autonomy of the mechanics to run their own affairs would be limited by accepting the money.
Martineau and Taylor sided with Birkbeck and Francis Place, in backing the subscription scheme brought forward by William Bayley, which was carried.
[9][10][11][12] With Galloway, Timothy Bramah and Henry Maudslay, Martineau also testified to Joseph Hume's parliamentary committee on artisans and technology, in the period 1824–5 when a commercial depression was looming.