Thomas Taylour, Earl of Bective


Thomas Taylour, Earl of Bective, styled Lord Kenlis until 1870, was an Anglo-Irish Conservative politician.
Bective was the son of Thomas Taylour, 3rd Marquess of Headfort, by his first wife Amelia. Kenlis was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He entered Parliament for Westmorland in 1871, a seat he held until 1885, when the constituency was abolished, and then represented Kendal until 1892. In 1884 he wrote to the Manchester-based Women's Suffrage Journal in support of the principle of women's suffrage, stating, "I think that women ought to be owners of the franchise. In fact, I think many women, especially freeholders and those who own a certain amount of property, are much more entitled to it than many men whom it is intended to enfranchise by the present Bill ."
Lord Bective married Lady Alice Maria, daughter of Arthur Hill, 4th Marquess of Downshire, in 1867. They had two daughters:
Bective served as High Sheriff of Westmorland in 1868. He died December 1893, aged 49, predeceasing his father by seven months. His half-brother Geoffrey later succeeded in the marquessate. The Countess of Bective died in 1928.
He was a Freemason, and served from 1886 as Grand Sovereign of the Masonic and Military Order of the Red Cross of Constantine and the Appendant Orders of the Holy Sepulchre and of St John the Evangelist, which is a masonic order open only to trinitarian Christians. His brother Geoffrey, who succeeded to the marquessate, was also a Freemason.