Charles H. Taylor was born in
Manchester, the son of a silk merchant. He followed his father into the trade and remained there until his late thirties. His friend
Robert Courtneidge was a producer at a local theatre, and Taylor supplied some topical lyrics for a
pantomime production there. This eventually led to continued contributions of lyrics, and so Taylor quit the silk business to begin writing lyrics full-time for popular music. After writing the lyrics for his first production for London's West End,
The Silver Slipper, Taylor became a popular lyricist. He supplied lyrics for
Seymour Hicks's
Bluebell in Fairyland (1901), which became the most successful children's entertainment of the era and was revived annually for the next four decades.
George Edwardes's production of
The Girl from Kays,
The Medal and the Maid (1903), and
Leslie Stuart's
The School Girl (1903). After the success of
Bluebell in Fairyland, the Seymour Hicks/
Charles Frohman organisation hired him as its chief lyricist. From 1904 to 1907 he supplied the lyrics to the four shows that the team wrote and produced with music by
Herbert Haines.
The Catch of the Season (1904) and
The Beauty of Bath (1906) were particularly successful. His last work,
Tom Jones, was a collaboration with Courtneidge, who had co-written an opera libretto adaptation of
Henry Fielding's novel
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Taylor supplied the lyrics, and
Edward German wrote the music. Some of the songs such as "For Tonight" (sometimes recorded as "The
Tom Jones Waltz"), "The Green Ribbon", and "The West Country Lad" proved to be some of the most popular of Taylor's and German's work. The work eventually became popular among amateur
light opera groups. Taylor died at the age of 47 while working on his first musical comedy libretto. A song from that work, "Dream 'o Day Jill", became a special addition to
Tom Jones to celebrate the 100th night of its run. ==References==