Find our entry on Harriet Taylor Mill in the Directory of Women Philosophers with a wide range of sources for further study!

Harriet Taylor Mill, née Hardy

*October 8, 1807 (London, United Kingdom)
†November 3, 1858 (Avignon, France)

Spouses: John Taylor; John Stuart Mill

Children: Herbert, Algernon, and Helen Taylor

Harriet Taylor Mill was an English philosopher and early advocate for women’s rights whose philosophical contribution is often subsumed under the works of her husband, the philosopher John Stuart Mill. She was born in London in 1807 as the daughter of Thomas Hardy and his wife Harriet Hurst and received a decent education at home. At the age of eighteen, she married John Taylor, a wealthy merchant, with whom she had three children in the following years: Herbert, Algernon, and Helen Taylor. In 1830, she was first introduced to John Stuart Mill through the politically radical community of the Unitarian Church, for whose publication, the Monthly Repository, she had contributed several articles. These should remain the only publications openly credited to her, but her philosophical career thrived during the acquaintance with Mill, who regarded her as his intellectual equal.

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