Francis Taylor, Baron Taylor of Hadfield

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Francis Taylor, Baron Taylor of Hadfield (also known as Lord (Frank) Taylor) (1905 - 1995) is best known as being the founder of Taylor Woodrow, the leading international developer of living and working environments.

He was born in Hadfield, near Glossop in Derbyshire on 7 January 1905. By the age of 11 he was operating his father's fruit business. The family moved to Blackpool where at the age of 16, with help from his father and a bank, he spent £470 developing two houses which he sold at a substantial profit. This was the beginning of the business which Frank Taylor founded, to which his uncle Jack Woodrow lent his name and which we now know as Taylor Woodrow.

In 1974 he was given a knighthood. In 1979 he resigned as managing director and became life president; he was elevated to the peerage on 27 January 1983 and assumed the title Baron Taylor of Hadfield.

Lord Taylor retired as chairman of the company late in the 1980's, as a director of the company in 1992 and continued to hold the position of Life President until his death on 15 February 1995, when he was visiting a company housing development, the 3-500 homes flagship 'Meadows' development with a golf course in Sarasota, Florida.