After a struggle to pursue higher education as a nun of the Order of Notre Dame de Namur, and being arrested during World War II on suspicion of being a German parachutist in disguise,[1] she received several honours for her work in the field of amoebic zoology.
She was born 1 November 1877 in St Helens, Lancashire to science teacher Joseph Taylor and his wife Agnes, née Picton.
[2] Combining teaching at Notre Dame with further study, she was awarded a DSc by the University of Glasgow in 1917.
'[4][5][2] In 1958 she also received the Patrick Neill medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh 'in recognition of her distinguished contributions to Protozoology.
[6] Taylor was interested in her fellow Catholic biologist Bertram Windle, of whom she published a memoir compiled from his letters in 1932 and an article in Nature in 1958.