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Rh the state of Yawnghwe, 105 m. from Thazi railway station on the Rangoon-Mandalay railway, with which it is connected by a cart-road. The civil station dates from 1894, when there were only a few Taungthu huts on the site. There were in 1906 upwards of a thousand houses, many of them substantially built of brick. Since 1906 the southern Shan States have been garrisoned by military police, whose headquarters are in Taunggyi. The station is to a considerable extent a commercial depot for the country behind, and there are many universal supply shops of most nationalities (except British)—Austrian, Chinese and Indian. The five-day bazaar is the trading place of the natives of the country. A special quarter contains the temporary residences of the chiefs when they visit headquarters, and there is a school for their sons. An orchard for experimental cultivation has met with considerable success. The average shade maximum temperature is 84°; the minimum 39°.

TAUNTON, HENRY LABOUCHERE, (1798–1869), English politician, came of a 'French Huguenot family, which, on leaving France, settled in Holland. His father, Peter Caesar Laboucherc, merchant, was a partner in the wealthy Amsterdam banking firm of Hope & Company; he went to live in England, and married a daughter of Sir Francis Baring. Henry was his elder son, while a younger son, John, was the father of the later well-known Radical member of parliament and proprietor of Truth, Henry Labouchere (b. 1831). He was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, and entered the House of Commons as a Whig in 1826. From 1830 to 1858 he sat for Taunton, Somerset. After filling various minor offices, he became president of the Board of Trade in 1830–41; and in 1846 he was chief secretary for Ireland. In 1847–52 he was again president of the Board of Trade, and from 1855 to 1858 secretary of state for the colonies. In 1859 he was created Baron Taunton, but on his death, on the 13th of July 1869, the title became extinct.

TAUNTON, a municipal and parliamentary borough and market town of Somersetshire, England, on the river Tone, 163 m. W by S. of London by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 21,087. Standing in the beautiful valley of Taunton Dene, the town is chiefly built on the south side of the river. Its three main streets, broad and regular, converge upon a triangular space called the Parade, where there is a market cross. The parish church of St Mary Magdalene is one of the finest and largest Perpendicular churches in England. Remnants of Norman work are preserved in the chancel arch, and of Early English work in the north aisles and transepts. The tower, noteworthy for its union of elaborate ornament and lightness of effect, exceeds 150 ft. in height. There are double aisles on each side of the nave, and the whole interior is admirable in its harmony of design and colour. Little is left of an Austin priory established in the reign of Henry I. by William Giffard, bishop of Winchester, who also built the castle, now a museum for prehistoric, Roman and medieval antiquities. Taunton castle, though largely rebuilt in 1496, embodies the remains of a very early fortress, while its walls and keep date from the 12th century, its towers and gatehouses from the 13th or 14th. At the Restoration it was dismantled and its moat filled in. Among the schools is a grammar school founded in 1522 by Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester. There are also public gardens, assembly rooms, almshouses, a town hall, market hall, a hospital founded in 1819 to commemorate the jubilee of George III., and a shire hall containing a series of marble busts representing, among other Somerset worthies, Admiral Blake, John Locke the philosopher, the Puritan leader Pym, Bishop Ken, and Speke the African explorer. The local industries are silk, linen and glove manufactures, iron and brass founding, coach building, cabinetmaking, malting and brewing; while Taunton Dene is famous as a rich agricultural district.

The parliamentary borough of Taunton returns one member. The town is governed by a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. Area, 1393 acres.

There was perhaps a Romano-British village near the suburb of Holway, and Taunton (Tantun, Tantone, Tauntone) was a place of considerable importance in Saxon times. King Ine threw up an earthen castle here about 700, and a monastery was founded before 904. The bishops of Winchester owned the manor, and obtained the first charter for their “men of Taunton” from King Edward in 904, freeing them from all royal and county tribute. At some time before the Domesday Survey Taunton had become a borough with very considerable privileges, governed by a port reeve appointed by the bishops. It did not obtain a charter of incorporation until that of 1627, which was renewed in 1677. The corporation existed until 1792, when the charter lapsed owing to vacancies in the number of the corporate body, and Taunton was not reincorporated until 1877. Parliamentary representation began in 1299, and two members were returned until 1885. A fair on the 7th of July was held under a charter of 1256, and there are now two fairs yearly, on the 17th of June and the 7th of July. The Saturday market for the sale of corn, cattle and provisions dates from before the Conquest. There is also a smaller market on Wednesdays. The medieval fairs and markets of Taunton were celebrated for the sale of woollen cloth called “Tauntons” made in the town. On the decline of the west of England woollen industry, silk-weaving was introduced at the end of the 18th century.

See Victoria County History, Somerset; Toulmen’s History of Taunton, edited by James Savage (1830).

TAUNTON, a city and one of the county-seats of Bristol county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., at the head of ocean navigation on the Taunton river, 17 m. above its mouth, about 35 m. S. of Boston, and about 14 m. N. of Fall River. Pop. (1890) 25,448; (1900) 31,036, of whom 9140 were foreign-born, 2844 being Irish, 2366 French-Canadians, 1144 English, and 801 English-Canadians; (1910, U.S. census) 34,259. Taunton is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad (Old Colony Branch) and by interurban electric railways connecting with Fall River, New Bedford, Providence and Boston. The channel of the Taunton river has been deepened and widened by the Federal government, and in 1910 vessels of 11 ft. draft could reach the city at high water (mean range of tide at Taunton, 3.4 ft.). Within the corporate limits of the city, which has a land area of 44.25 sq. m., there are six villages—Hopewell, Britanniaville, Oakland, Whittenton, East Taunton and the Weir. Taunton Green, a rectangular stretch of land fringed with lofty elms, the “common” of the New England town, about which is the business portion of the modern city, is 1 m. from the Weir, the port of the city.

The city contains interesting specimens of colonial or early 19th-century architecture. Among the modern public buildings are the handsome granite County Court House (1895), facing the Green, the Public Library building (given by Andrew Carnegie), the registry building, the county gaol, the city hall, the post office, an old ladies' home, an emergency hospital, the Morton Hospital, occupying the fine old residence of Governor Marcus Morton, and the Y.M.C.A. building. The Bristol County Law Library and Old Colony Historical Society (incorporated in 1853 and organized in 1854) possess valuable collections of books, and the latter has a collection of portraits and antiquities. Bristol Academy (1792; non-sectarian) is a well-known preparatory. school, and there is also a commercial school-the Bristol County Business College. At Norton (pop. int 1910, 2544), directly N. of Taunton, and formerly within its boundaries, is Wheaton Seminary (1834) for girls. Among social clubs are the Winthrop Club, the Bristol Club, the Taunton Boat Club, the Yacht Club, and the Country Club. A good water-supply, owned by the city, is obtained from neighbouring lakes and ponds, along the shores of which are many summer cottages. Taunton was one of the first cities in the United States to own and operate its own electric lighting plant, which it acquired from-a private corporation in 1897. Its industrial importance