Born in Auchtermuchty, Scotland, he studied at Edinburgh University, and was admitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1858.
He was one of the members of the Court who sat on the appeal by Métis leader Louis Riel from his conviction of high treason following the North-West Rebellion in 1885.
The court dismissed Riel's appeal, which was upheld by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the highest court of appeal in the British Empire.
[1] Taylor was Chief Justice of Manitoba from 1887 to 1899, and in 1890 and 1893 was administrator of the provincial government.
He made an extensive study of equity jurisprudence, on which subject he published a volume of Commentaries (1875).