Taylor was from a mining family in Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire and left school at 14 to work at the Sherwood Colliery.
He was a conscientious objector in the First World War A member of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, Taylor also joined the Labour Party.
Much of Taylor's concerns related to the welfare problems of miners and in the post-war Labour government he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Jim Griffiths, the Minister of National Insurance.
While this job normally entailed managing relations between the Minister and Parliamentary colleagues, Taylor also accompanied Griffiths on trips in the country.
He was promoted to be Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of National Insurance in March 1950, after the 1950 general election, and served until the Labour government went out of office in October 1951.
During the Labour Party split in the early 1950s, Taylor sided with the left and Aneurin Bevan, opposing German rearmament and the development of the Hydrogen bomb.