Thomas Taylour, 2nd Marquess of Headfort

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Thomas Taylour, 2nd Marquess of Headfort (4 May 1787 – 6 December 1870) was an Anglo-Irish Whig politician. He served as Member of Parliament for Meath from 1812 to 1830. He held the titles Viscount Headfort (1795–1800) and Earl of Bective (1800–1829) before becoming the 2nd Marquess of Headfort in 1829.

In 1831 he was created Baron Kenlis in the United Kingdom, giving him a seat in the House of Lords. He joined the Irish Privy Council in 1835 and served as a Lord-in-waiting (the government whip in the Lords) in Lord Melbourne’s government from 1837 to 1841. He was Lord Lieutenant of Cavan from 1831 to 1870 and was made a Knight of the Order of St Patrick in 1839. He also held military roles, becoming Colonel of the Royal Meath Militia from 1823 and later its Honorary Colonel after the regiment was revived in 1852.

Headfort married Olivia Dalton (later Stevenson) in 1822. She died of cholera in 1834, leaving nine children. Their son Thomas would become the 3rd Marquess, and another child, Virginia Taylour, became author Virginia Sandars. In 1853 he married Lady Frances Macnaghten, the widow of James McClintock and of Sir William Hay Macnaghten, the British envoy to Afghanistan who was killed in Kabul in 1841.

Thomas Taylour died in December 1870 at the age of 83 and was succeeded by his son Thomas from the first marriage. The second Marchioness died in 1878.