Where was Alan John Percivale Taylor born?
A. J. P. Taylor
Birkdale, Southport, which was then part of Lancashire
Taylor was born in 1906 in Birkdale, Southport, which was then part of Lancashire. His wealthy parents held left-wing views, which he inherited. Both his parents, Percy Lees and Constance Sumner (Thompson) Taylor, were pacifists who vocally opposed the First World War, and sent their son to Quaker schools as a way of protesting against the war. These schools included The Downs School at Colwall and Bootham School in York.[2][3][4]
Geoffrey Barraclough, a contemporary at Bootham School, remembered Taylor as "a most arresting, stimulating, vital personality, violently anti-bourgeois and anti-Christian".[5] In 1924, he went to Oriel College, Oxford, to study modern history.