Joseph John Tylor

Joseph John Tylor
Born	1851
Died	1901
Residence	Fir Toll, Mayfield, Sussex
Occupation	engineer egyptologist
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow left 1901 deceased elected_AI 1892.06.21 clubs National Liberal Club societies Institution of Civil Engineers

Notes

House Notes

E.B. Tylor was his uncle

Notes From Elsewhere

TYLOR, JOSEPH JOHN (1851–1901), engineer and Egyptologist, born at Stoke Newington on 1 Feb. 1851, was eldest child (of two sons and four daughters) of Alfred Tylor [q. v.], brass founder and geologist, and Isabella Harris (both of the Society of Friends). Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, the anthropologist, was his uncle. Joseph, after being educated at the Friends' school. Grove House, Tottenham, matriculated at London University in June 1868, and then turning to engineering, studied at the Polytechnic School at Stuttgart, 1868-70. On returning home he entered the Bowling ironworks in Yorkshire. In February 1872 he became partner in the family firm of J. Tylor & Sons, brass founders, 2 Newgate Street, E.G., which had been founded by his grandfather, John Tylor; on his father's death in 1884 he became senior partner. He was elected A.M.I.C.E. on 1 May 1877, and patented many successful inventions, particularly in connection with hydraulic meters. A liberal in politics, he was associated with his brother-in-law, William Leatham Bright, and with Arthur Williams in founding the National Liberal Club in 1882. In 1891 failing health prevented him from following his profession, and he turned to Egypt and Egyptology in search of health and occupation. Here he experimented with the pictorial reproduction of the ancient sculptures and paintings of tombs and temples. His method was to divide up a wall (often irregular in form and surface) into equal spaces with stretched threads, and having photographed these without distortion to enlarge the negatives and print them faintly. The essential outlines were then strengthened with pencil, the injuries, dirt-marks, &c., on the original eliminated, and the result rephotographed for publication. In conjunction with Mr. Somers Clarke, Tylor selected El Kab in Upper Egypt as a field for his labours, and began a series of monographs under the general title of ’Wall Drawings and Monuments of El Kab.' The separate monographs were: 'The Tomb of Pakeri' (1895); 'The Tomb of Sebeknekht' (1896); 'The Temple of Amenketep III' (1898) ; and 'The Tomb of Renni' (1900). He died at his winter residence, Villa la Guerite, La Turbee, Alpes-Maritimes, on 5 April 1901, and was buried at Beaulieu. He married on 15 Sept. 1887 Marion (d. 1889), third daughter of George, Lord Young [q. v. Suppl. II], and had two sons, Alfred and George Cunnyngham."
His portrait as a boy of thirteen by W. Hay, and an oil portrait by Charles Vigor, 1894, are in possession of his son, Alfred Tylor, 34 Palace Gardens Terrace, London, W.


After passing the matriculation examination at London University in June, 1868, he served an apprenticeship under Mr. J. C. Pearce at the Bowling Iron Works, from 1868 to 1871, the first six months in the drawing office, and for two years receiving wages as a workman in the shops.
He then entered in November, 1871, the Polytechnikum at Stuttgart, in the upper or technical division, and attended the whole course of lectures in chemistry and machine construction.
In the beginning of 1873 he was engaged by Messrs. A. Tylor and Co., colliery proprietors, as Engineer, and carried out, in conjunction with Mr. H. Kirkhouse, the sinking of their colliery in the Rhondda Fach; and between 1874 and 1877 he constructed several small waterworks, including that at Westgate-on-Sea.
Mr. Tylor was a member of the firm of J. Tylor and Sons, and acted as Consulting Engineer on its being turned into a public company; and he was also Consulting Engineer to Messrs. A. Tylor and Co., of Cardiff, colliery proprietors.
He died at his residence at Cap d’Ail, near Monaco, on the 5th April, 1901.
Mr. Tylor’s interests were not confined to Engineering. Among specialists in Egyptian archeology he had a well-merited reputation. His purpose in wintering in Egypt was to regain lost health, but he soon employed himself in excavation, and experience made him sensible of the extent, to which hieroglyphic inscriptions published even in costly and monumental works, are untrustworthy. Especially wall-painting inscriptions, fast perishing and only to be replaced by copies, have suffered from the imaginative methods of the artist restorer. Mr. Tylor adopted the method of completing by hand enlarged photographs, by filling in the minutest details, such as the texture of the material represented, and, lastly, comparing on the spot every line with the original. His series of the "Wall Drawings and Monuments of El Kab" (1895-1900) is said to present a near approach to absolute reproduction of these important documents of ancient history.
Mr. Tylor was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 1st May, 1877. As a Student, he had previously presented a Paper entitled "The Development of Collieries," for which he was awarded a Miller Prize.

Publications

External Publications

A Vocabulary of Vernacular Egyptian Arabic

The Tomb of Pakeri' (1895);
'The Tomb of Sebeknekht' (1896);
'The Temple of Amenketep III' (1898) ; and 'The Tomb of Renni' (1900).

"The Development of Collieries,"