Sir William Taylor Money (1769 – April 1834) was an English naval captain in the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

, superintendent of the

Bombay Marine The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) was the naval force of British India and the Dominion of India. Along with the Presidency armies, later the Indian Army, and from 1932 the Royal Indian Air Force, it was one of the Armed Forces of British India. Fr ...

and MP in the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

Early life

He was the eldest son of Captain William Money of Wood End House, Walthamstow, a director of the East India Company for 1789–96, and Martha, the daughter of James Taylor.

Career

Money was commissioned in the East India Company navy as a lieutenant in the ''

Rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

'' in 1786 and in 1793 he became commander of the '' General Goddard'' belonging to Sir Robert Wigram, 1st Baronet, his father's business partner. After a successful initial voyage he was given the command of other Wigram ships including the ''Walthamstow''. On his retirement from sea in 1801 he became the East India Company Marine Superintendent at Bombay, a post he held until 1810. During this period he served as president of the

Asiatic Society of Bombay The Asiatic Society of Mumbai (formerly ''Asiatic Society of Bombay'') is a learned society in the field of Asian studies based in Mumbai, India. It can trace its origin to the Literary Society of Bombay which first met in Mumbai on 26 November ...

from 1815. He also gave his name to Money Island in the

Paracel Islands The Paracel Islands, also known as the Xisha Islands () and the Hoang Sa Archipelago ( vi, Quần đảo Hoàng Sa, lit=Yellow Sand Archipelago), are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. The archipelago includes about 130 small coral ...

group in the South China Sea which was named after him by the British naval surveyor Captain Daniel Ross. On his return to England he established a home in

Streatham Park Streatham Park is an area of suburban South West London that comprises the eastern part of Furzedown ward in the London Borough of Wandsworth, formerly in the historic parish of Streatham. It is bounded by Tooting Bec Common to the north, Thr ...

, Surrey and became a Director of the East India Company from 1818 to 1826. He entered Parliament as the member for

Wootton Bassett Royal Wootton Bassett , formerly Wootton Bassett, is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, with a population of 11,043 in 2001, increasing to 11,385 in 2011. Situated in the north of the county, it lies to the west of the major ...

from 1816 to 1820 and for

Mitchell Mitchell may refer to: People *Mitchell (surname) *Mitchell (given name) Places Australia * Mitchell, Australian Capital Territory, a light-industrial estate * Mitchell, New South Wales, a suburb of Bathurst * Mitchell, Northern Territo ...

from 1820 to 1826. He gave up his Parliamentary seat in March 1826 when appointed consul to the Lombard states but died of cholera in Venice in April 1834. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

in 1818. and invested a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1831.

Private life

He had married Eugenia, the daughter of William Money of Homme House, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, with whom he had 7 sons and 2 daughters. He left all his property to his wife in trust for their children, but his estate in Java had to be sold to pay his debts. Several of his children and grandchildren also served in the Indian army or civil service.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Money, William Taylor 1769 births 1834 deaths British East India Company civil servants Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies UK MPs 1812–1818 UK MPs 1818–1820 UK MPs 1820–1826 Fellows of the Royal Society Deaths from cholera