'133-year-old' man buried in Scotland could be oldest ever
MARK FERGUSON
HISTORIANS are facing the challenge of proving that a man who lived
almost all his life in Scotland reached the age of 133 - which would
make him the world's longest-lived person.
A miner's son born near Alston in Cumbria in 1637, John Taylor spent
most of his apparent 105-year working life in Scotland, first at a
lead mine in Islay, before moving to oversee mines in Strontian,
Argyll.
Then, after struggling as a Glasgow labourer for three years, he
moved to Gold Scars, near Leadhills, Lanarkshire, at the age of 95
to work in the local lead mine. He continued working for a further
19 years, before finally retiring in 1752 at the age of 114.
When he died on 6 May, 1770, locals marked his grave with a stone
saying he was, in fact, 137 years old - an apparent typographical
error.
Three years earlier, a paper submitted to the Society of Antiquaries
in London reported that Mr Taylor was alive and well at the age of
130.
His gravestone now stands in the shadow of a monument to another
Leadhills hero, William Symington - who invented the paddle steam
engine with the help of Mr Taylor's grandson, James.
Mary Hamilton, a historian and expert on Mr Taylor, said:
"Unfortunately, John, who fathered nine children, died around 100
years before birth certificates were introduced. So it will be
difficult to prove his age, because even the church records don't go
that far back.
"Although it says on his gravestone that he lived until the age of
137, we are now quite sure that he was in fact `only' 133. We know
this because he could recall being called above ground to see the
great solar eclipse, Mirk Monday, in 1652.
"He must have been at least 15, as that was the youngest you were
allowed to work underground in the lead mines."
Although a team of professional genealogists scoured archives for a
record of Mr Taylor's birth, no conclusive proof of his exact age
has yet been found. However, Alistair Robertson, the keeper of the
archives in Alston, said there were plenty of
precedents. "Garrigill, the parish where Taylor was born, is famous
locally for producing very long-lived people," he said. "I have read
many accounts of people there living well into their hundreds in the
late 18th and early 19th centuries."
The oldest recorded person was Jeanne-Louise Calment, of France, who
died in 1997 at the age of 122.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=625262004&20040602135637
