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2. British. In form Merchant Taylor. A person educated at a Merchant Taylors' school, spec. the one (still in existence) founded in London in 1561. Also (occasionally) Merchant Taylor man. Now usually Old Merchant Taylor.Richard Mulcaster (?1530–1611), the influential English schoolmaster, was the first headmaster of the London school, and the poet Edmund Spenser (?1552–99) was one of his pupils there.Two other Merchant Taylors' schools exist in England, both in Crosby, near Liverpool. However, former pupils of the Crosby schools are known as Old Crosbeians, not Old Merchant Taylors.St John's College in Oxford, founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas White (himself a Merchant Taylor), was a principal beneficiary of the Merchant Taylors' company. The college originally had 50 fellowships (later mainly converted into scholarships), of which approximately 37 were reserved for pupils of the Merchant Taylors' School. The sermon referred to in quot. 1958 was in Latin, and a translation published in 1722 contains no instance of the term, nor have any other early uses been found.