Lieutenant Geoffrey Barron Taylor

Lieutenant, 15th Battalion, Infantry (Army).

Son of William John Mahaffy Taylor and Stella Bertha Taylor, of 49 Heath St. West, Toronto, Ontario. He was attending Trinity College, Oxford, when war broke out and he joined the Battalion on its arrival in England.

Geoffrey Barron Taylor was educated at the Toronto's Model School and at the Harbord Street Collegiate Institute. He was a student at the University of Toronto in Applied Science from 1910-13, and at Trinity College, Oxford from 1913-14.

He was reorted missing at the battle of St. Julien (2nd Ypres) and was thought to have died of gas poisoning. According to his obituary published in 1921 in the University of Toronto Roll of Service:

He was last seen making his way to a deserted farm house a short distance back from the trenches.

There is an extensive photo and image collection for G. B. Taylor on the Canadian Virtual Memorial. View it here

One photo shows Taylor as Athletic Director at the University of Toronto in 1913. Image

Another photo shows Taylor as a member of the University of Toronto Rugby Team. Image

From the Varsity War Supplement, University of Toronto, July 1915:

Geof. Taylor was one of the best all-round men this University has produced, a celebrated athlete, a distinguished scholar and a gentleman. As a football player he will long be remembered as one of the best linemen the game ever knew, and as an oarsman, the best stroke that ever wore the Argonaut colours. In 1912 he was a close competitor for the Rhodes Scholarship. He went to the front as lieutenant in the 15th Battalion, 1st Contingent, and has been missing since Langemarck.

Religion is not marked on the attestation and has a handwritten note - "none". This is unusual.

Varsity War Supplement, University of Toronto, July 1915 - private collection, M. I. Pirie.