Memorable Manitobans: Richard Ratcliffe Taylor (1851-1911)

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Richard Ratcliffe Taylor
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Farmer, municipal official, coal merchant.

Born at London, England on 25 April 1851, he emigrated to Canada in 1889 and settled at Middlechurch where he farmed for ten years, and served as Reeve of the Rural Municipality of St. Paul (1893-1895, 1898) and President of the Bird’s Hill Farmers’ Institute (1894-1897). In 1899 he moved to Winnipeg and started a coal business, and opened a small coal mine near Souris. In time, he was President and Manager of the Souris Coal Mining Company and senior member of the coal firm of Taylor & Sons at Winnipeg.

He and wife Anne (1842-1936) had eleven children: Henry Taylor (1871-?), Samuel Taylor (1873-?), George Taylor (1873-?), Annie Taylor (1874-?), John Taylor (1875-?), Ellen Taylor (1876-?), James Taylor (1878-?), Alice Taylor (1879-?), Thomas Taylor (1882-?), Richard Taylor Jr. (1884-?), and Charles Taylor (1886-?). He was a Mason and a member of the Carleton Club.

In 1908, he sold his business holdings and retired to Victoria, British Columbia where he died on 31 December 1911.

Sources:

1891 Canada census, Ancestry.

1901 Canada census, Automated Genealogy.

A History of Manitoba: Its Resources and People by Prof. George Bryce, Toronto: The Canadian History Company, 1906.

Death registration, British Columbia Vital Statistics.

“Former Winnipegger is dead in Victoria,” Manitoba Free Press, 2 January 1912. [Manitoba Legislative Library, Biographical Scrapbook B5]

“Mrs. Anne Taylor, 95, dies at Victoria,” Winnipeg Free Press, 7 February 1936, page 18.

We thank Nathan Kramer for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 19 December 2015

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

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