Bradford People: William Taunton
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William Leonard Thomas Pyle Taunton (1780-1850) was the son of Rev Dr Robert Taunton (c1742-1797) and Frances (c1752-1819), daughter and co-heiress of Leonard Cropp of Hampshire. Rev Taunton purchased the Great Cumberwell estate in 1787 and was a signatory to a petition of Bradford residents in 1789. There is a memorial in Holy Trinity Church, Bradford to Rev Taunton, his wife, five sons and two daughters.
William went to Oxford University in 1796 and was practising as a barrister-at-law at the Middle Temple in London in 1804. By the 1820s he was living in Clifton, Bristol and had chambers in Corn Street, Bristol. He was active in Bristol as a promoter of the Avon & Gloucestershire Railway in 1828, as a founding member of the Bristol Charities in 1836 and a Liberal Councillor in St James’ Ward from 1838 to 1841. He took an active part in the Bristol Institution, especially the mineral collections and was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1831. He and others who had an interest in the property, sold the Great Cumberwell estate in 1832.
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