The Catholic Faith of John Stuart Mill's Stepdaughter: A Note on the Diary and Devotional Life of the Feminist Activist Helen Taylor (1831–1907)

Helen Taylor (1831–1907) was an advocate for women's rights. She was also the stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill and his most important collaborator after the death of her mother, Harriet Taylor Mill. Although it has never before been the focus of any study, Helen kept a diary as a child and youth. It reveals a deeply religious life. Despite her Unitarian family background and her mother and Mill being religious skeptics or freethinkers, Helen attempted to pursue a life of intense Roman Catholic devotion. She even developed the eccentric habit of performing the Mass at home. It was also reported that Helen Taylor was received into the Roman Catholic Church late in life. Indeed, all three of Harriet's children were drawn to the Catholic Mass. Religion, in fact, continually impinged on John Stuart Mill's personal life. Even his sister Mary, who was entirely homeschooled by Mill himself, was a pious woman who longed for Mill to be a Christian. Mill was "one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has, not thrown off religious belief, but never had it," but it is important to realize that even such an ostensibly secular path as that was experienced in the nineteenth century in a world in which religion continually impinged upon one's life in specific and substantial ways.