Her father, a man of education, inspired his daughter with a lifelong love for history and strong filial affection from an early age.

[1] Her mother, wanted Taylor to be free to do "what she hoped all women would one day have the liberty to do: to work at a job of her own choosing.

[4] Taylor not only took entire charge of practical matters and of his heavy correspondence, answering many of his letters herself, but also may have co-operated in his literary work, especially in The Subjection of Women (1869), much of which might have been suggested by her mother.

A description of a botanical collecting trip, to the Pyrenees in 1860, illustrates not only Taylor's strength of character but her devotion to Mill: "Helen had a wearying time, trundling along doggedly in her awkward clothes, travelling sometimes four hours on foot and eight on horseback in a day, in scorching sun, on rocky mountain trails; sinking knee deep in snow over the passes, splashing through the thaw, stopping at desolate little inns where no lady traveller had ever been seen before".

[6] A letter to Taylor from Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, the then Government Botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, Australia, thanking her for her generosity, describes the receipt of a portion of the Mill Herbarium as "one of the greatest triumphs of my life".

Mill's death left Taylor free to enter public life and so further the social and political reforms in which her step-father had stirred her interest.

Possessed of ample means, which she generously employed in public causes, she made her home in London, while spending her holidays at the house at Avignon which Mill left her.

[1] Mill had refused, in 1870, through lack of time, the invitation of the Southwark Radical Association to become its candidate for the newly established London School Board.

Although a section of liberals opposed her on account of her advanced opinions, her eloquence and magnetic personality won the support of all shades of religious and political faith.

[7] While Taylor was a member of the board, she provided at her own expense, through the teachers and small local committees, a midday meal and a pair of serviceable boots to necessitous children in Southwark.

[8] Taylor accused Scrutton of taking some of the money and for being responsible for the deaths of boys at the St Paul's school.

On the fourth day, 30 June, Taylor's case broke down on the plea of justification, and she paid the plaintiff £1,000 by consent.

Taylor's enthusiasm for land nationalisation brought her the acquaintance of Henry George, the American promoter of the policy.

Taylor consistently advocated female suffrage, a policy her stepfather also supported in thinking not only should a woman's marital status not affect her right to a vote,[4] but believing that it would generally improve the morals of the people.

Although interested in making changes by serving politically, on 15 August 1878, writing from Avignon, Taylor positively denied a rumour that she intended to seek nomination as a parliamentary candidate for Southwark.

[4]Shortly after the 1882 election effort, Taylor relinquished public work, owing to age and failing health, and retired for some nineteen years to her house at Avignon, where she had invariably spent her holidays and where she endeared herself to the people by her generous benefactions.

In the same year, at the insistence of Lord Morley of Blackburn, she presented Mill's library to Somerville College, Oxford.