Edward Plunket Taylor

Background

He was born on January 29, 1901, in Ottawa to Lieutenant-Colonel Plunket Bourchier Taylor and Florence Gertrude (Magee).

Education

"Eddie" enjoyed a private school education at Ashbury College, then graduated from McGill University with a BS (mechanical engineering) in 1922.

Career

Following a few years with the investment house of McLeod Young and Weir, he became president of Canadian Breweries in 1930. In putting together this company and taking over Carling Breweries, Taylor entered the domain of big business by forging the world's largest brewery. As a financier, he bought and closed down many smaller breweries. His means were ruthless: he threatened his competitors with price wars and cajoled them with lucrative buy-out schemes. Between 1930 and 1938 Canadian Breweries acquired 15 brewery plants, reducing the total number of plants to six and the number of labels from 50 to 27. To the distress of Canadian beer drinkers, by 1954 only four companies remained, marketing a mere eight labels. To the financier Taylor companies were commodities; in 1968 he sold his controlling interest in Canadian Breweries to Rothmans of Pall Mall, a South African firm, for $28. 8 million. By then he had acquired an empire around Argus Corporation with control over such giant enterprises as British Columbia Forest Products, Dominion Stores, Domtar Paper, and Massey-Ferguson. He created Argus (which in classical mythology means a giant guardian with a hundred eyes) in 1945 to hold the controlling shares of these operating companies. Later Argus acquisitions included Hollinger Mines and Standard Broadcasting. Taylor withdrew from active management of Argus in 1971 and eventually sold his shares to Paul Desmarais of Power Corporation during a take-over bid. Throughout his career Taylor moved in the top international social circles, with private memberships in the exclusive Toronto, York, and Rideau clubs in Canada; the Metropolitan and The Jockey clubs in New York; the Buck's and Turf clubs in England; and the Lyford Cay (which he created himself) in the Bahamas. Following "retirement, " Taylor built the community of Lyford Cay in the Bahamas as a residential playground for the wealthy. Bitten by the building bug, he galloped ahead to become the world's largest housing contractor, with extensive operations throughout the Third World constructing prefabricated houses. He was chairman of New Providence Development Company in Nassau and remained active in his horse-racing ventures until his death in 1989.

Achievements

• He was a famous breeder of thoroughbred race horses. Known to his friends as "Eddie", he is universally recorded as "E. P. Taylor".

Views

Quotations: "Come, eate thy fill of this thy God's white loaf. It's food too fine for Angels, yet come, take and eate thy fill. It's Heaven's Sugar Cake. "

"Make me, o lord, thy spinning wheel complete, thy holy word thy distaff make for me. "

"It's food too fine for angels, yet come, take and eat thy fill!"

"There's an unexpectedly high share of workers still in agriculture, . . That's like a fault line. "

Connections

He married Winnifred Thornton Duguid and together they had three children.

Father:

Plunket Bourchier Taylor

Mother:

Florence Magee

Spouse:

Winnifred Thornton Duguid

child:

Louise

child:

Judith

child:

Charles