[1] Like his father he was a coal-miner who joined the Wesleyan Methodists in 1761, during his early twenties.
Building the Chapel proved an expensive burden, so Taylor travelled on foot to Leicestershire in search of support.
Traditionally non-creedal, many General Baptist congregations were becoming increasingly liberal in their doctrine, obliging the more orthodox and the more evangelical among them to reconsider their allegiance.
Well organised from the outset, the Connexion thrived, particularly in the industrial areas of the English Midlands.
Taylor ministered to the Birchcliffe Baptist Church for twenty years until 1783 when he moved to a chapel in Wandsworth, south west London.