Born in Leytonstone, London on 5 April, 1862 (GRO), the son of a lawyer, William M Tayler and his wife Sarah,  he studied at Heatherleys, the RA schools and at the Slade where he met Thomas Cooper GOTCH, and then also at Laurens Atelier in Paris. Another close friend, made in Paris, was Norman GARSTIN.

He lived for 12 years in Newlyn, after arriving first in 1884. (The Centre for Whistler Studies, holding a biography for Tayler, incorrectly states that he spent two years only in Cornwall before settling permanently in London. In fact, he lived successively at Belle Vue House, the Malt House with the Gotches, and later at Park Terrace).

He served on the provisional committee of artists when NAG opened on 22 October 1895, but moved soon after to settle in Kensington, London. Despite non-residence in Cornwall, he continued to show and sell paintings at NAG. In 1896 he married Mrs Elizabeth Cotes, the daughter of a surgeon to the Royal Household, who had one daughter by her first marriage. Together the couple had two sons, both of whom were killed in WWI.

His sister, Mary Beatrice Churchill Tayler (1869-c1939), moved to Cornwall in 1921, and became the resident Assistant Honorary Secretary of NAG and the NSA, with her friend Miss Hall acting as Custodian. Reginald DICK had taken over as Temporary Hon Sec when Henry RHEAM had died in post, and the two women were to rescue the Gallery from the lack of administrative control and direction which occurred.  Miss Churchill Tayler remained in post until 1934, when she joined the NAG Committee, and was made an Honorary Life Member. Hence the connections between the Tayler family and Newlyn were to span a period of some 55 years.

His subjects were interiors, dinner parties and other domestic celebrations, later concentrating on religious subjects.  He died on 20 December, 1925 in London.

A full page reproduction of his painting Feeding Time (detail), in the possession of Penlee House Museum, Penzance, is reprinted in PCF (2007).

[Photo likeness in Hardie 2009 with Henry Scott TUKE.]