As a member of Toronto's Argonaut Rowing Club, he was stroke of the 1907 Junior four and eight at 17 years of age.

[1] He was stroke of the Canadian boat which won the bronze medal in the coxless four in 1908, when he also stroked the Canadian eight which won the bronze medal behind Leander Club (gold) and Belgium (silver).

Taylor was a student at Trinity College, Oxford University when World War I began.

He left his studies and was commissioned into the 15th Battalion (48th Highlanders of Canada), CEF, on the unit's arrival in England in February 1915 with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and fell in action with it as a lieutenant on April 24, 1915, aged 25 at the 2nd Battle of Ypres.

His body was not recovered from the field, and his name is engraved on the gateway for the missing of the Ypres Salient at Menin.