Background
Her parents were Henry Taylor, a historian and antiquarian who married her mother, a Mission Venables.
Her parents were Henry Taylor, a historian and antiquarian who married her mother, a Mission Venables.
Margery Venables Taylor was educated at Queen"s School, Chester and Somerville College, Oxford, where she took the examinations for which women were not at that time awarded with a degree.
She was particularly instrumental in recording excavations in Roman Britain. Taylor had worked as an assistant to Francis Haverfield for several years, and following his death took up the editorship of the JRS for a further four decades. Although not herself an Administrator, she worked and travelled widely on behalf of the Haverfield Bequest, which was to be applied to the promotion of the study of Roman Britain.
As joint Secretary of the Society of Promotion of Roman Studies and Editor of the Journal, she made the decision to focus resources on the Journal at the cost of other projects, and to publish the annual account of excavation in Roman Britain.
She also created the Congress of Classical Studies, held jointly with the Hellenic Society and the Classical Association, which became a triennial event.
In 1947 she became an honorary member of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne.