Frederick Williams-Taylor

Who was Frederick Williams-Taylor?

Sir Frederick Williams-Taylor was a Canadian banker. He was general manager of the Bank of Montreal.

Born in Moncton, New Brunswick, the son of Ezekiel Moore Taylor and Rosalind Beatty, Williams-Taylor joined the Bank of Montreal in 1878. He was appointed Assistant Inspector, Head Office in 1897; Joint Manager, Chicago in 1903; Manager in London, England in 1906; and General Manager in 1913.

He married the former Jane Fayrer Henshaw, daughter of Mr. Joshua Henshaw of Montreal in June 1888, and they had a daughter, Brenda Germaine Henshaw Williams-Taylor. In 1917 their daughter married Frank Duff Frazier, who came from a prosperous Boston family. Their daughter Brenda Frazier was the famous American debutante popular during the Depression era.

Just before her daughter's wedding in Montreal in December 1917, Lady Williams-Taylor was painted by the Swiss-born American society artist Adolfo Muller-Ury at Nassau in the Bahamas, after which he attended the wedding ceremony.

Frederick Williams-Taylor was knighted in 1913, and combined his middle name and birth surname into a new hyphenated surname.