Ann Taylor

Ann Taylor was born in Islington in 1782, the elder sister and lifelong collaborator of Jane Taylor. With Jane and other contributors she wrote Original Poems for Infant Minds (first issued 1804, with a second volume in 1805) and Rhymes for the Nursery (1806), books that did not always say which sister wrote what, and their poems were often confused, usually to Jane's advantage.

Ann's "My Mother" became one of the best-loved poems of the nineteenth century. It was reprinted again and again, parodied, and still memorised as a recital piece into the twentieth century; the logician Augustus De Morgan called it "one of the most beautiful lyrics in the English language."

In 1813 she married Joseph Gilbert, a Congregational minister, and as Ann Gilbert went on writing hymns, essays and a memoir of her husband. She died in Nottingham in 1866; her autobiography, edited by her son Josiah Gilbert, appeared in 1874.