Researching Patrick Taylor

Born in 1941 and brought up in Bangor, Northern Ireland, Taylor studied and practiced medicine in Belfast and rural Ulster before immigrating to Canada in 1970 to work in the field of human infertility. From 1987-1989 he worked at the Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic in association with 2010 Nobel Laureate Sir Robert Edwards. Taylor has received three lifetime achievement awards including the Lifetime Award of Excellence in Reproductive Medicine of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society.

He has written or contributed to 170 academic papers and six textbooks and also served as editor-in-chief of the Canadian Obstetrics and Gynaecology Journal, as well as writing several medical humour columns and serving as book reviewer for Stitches: The Journal of Medical Humour.

Taylor has published more than fifteen works of creative writing, all set in Northern Ireland. He is best known for his Irish Country series, several of which have been international bestsellers, particularly in Canada, where Taylor has resided since 1970.

An earlier work, written with TF Baskett, titled The Complete Anthology of En Passant 1989-1999, is a collection of their shared humour columns.

Taylor now lives on Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada.

He was born at Govan in Lanarkshire to grain merchant William Taylor and Jane Wilson. He attended Glasgow High School and was an accountant. He migrated to New South Wales around 1881, and on 29 November 1883 married Alice Maud Sayers, with whom he had four children. He ran a merchant firm in 1888 and from 1893 to 1898 was an alderman at Mosman, serving as mayor in 1896. From around 1897 he was the director of Sydney Ferries. He was politically active, being involved in the formation of the Nationalist Party. As such he was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1917, serving until his death at Edgecliff in 1922.