Early years

George Taberer was baptised on 18 May 1830 at St Nicholas, Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Parents William and Mary were both silk ribbon weavers.  Census data suggests he had two older and six younger siblings. Against his father’s wishes, he got married at 18 to Sarah Biggs.

Life before joining the Salvation Army

George and Sarah Taberer worked mostly in weaving, around Nuneaton, Coventry and Leicester, changing roles as industrialisation progressed.

They had four children:

• Mary Ann
• William
• Eliza
• Jane E
• Sally

George had a rocky life before the SA, and struggled with alcohol and was violent. He was convicted of theft in 1854 and sentenced to 28 days with hard labour. He had a drinking problem. He was a domestic abuser. He once gave himself up as a murderer, was remanded, but released. He also tried to take his own life.

Salvation Army

George Taberer had a religious conversion in Leicester between 1870 & 1879. He was a Salvation Army Captain by 1879, when Sarah Taberer was also a member. During 1879-1880, he set up the organisation’s first Middlesbrough and Hull missions, and was also posted to Bolton. The couple were sent to Bristol in 1880, where he was the first Salvation Army Captain in the city, and led the group of members that set up the first mission in Bristol. He had other postings after this, but ill-health gradually restricted his Salvation Army work. The couple had permanent Bristol addresses from 1889.

Death

Captain George Taberer died on 4 October 1902 aged 72 but had suffered ill health for sometime which was attributed to his past heavy drinking. His funeral conducted by Colonel Whatmore was held on 11 October 1902 at the Salvation Army Citadel, Ashley Road which was followed by a Salvation Army march with bands to Arnos Vale Cemetery where he is buried.

In aWestern Daily Press article (1902) about the funeral, it was said; 'George was one of those men, who had been redeemed from the power of sin, and who had been entrusted to carry on a blessed work.'

Legacy

The 1902 Bristol directory listed 8 local Salvation Army mission stations, a store, a shelter and an industrial home so the Army's influence in Bristol had increased since George arrived with his Salvation Army colleagues in 1880.