E.P. Taylor: The Biography of Edward Plunket Taylor

by Richard Rohmer

E. P. Taylor was one of the greatest and most successful business figures of the 20th century.

After building an empire in the beer business in the '30s, Taylor went to Ottawa as one of the legendary "dollar-a-year men" during the Second World War. When the war ended, he turned his hand to putting together the biggest Canadian conglomerate of the the giant Argus Corporation. With his colleagues, Taylor controlled businesses worth hundred of millions of dollars--in groceries (Dominion Stores), farm machinery (Massey Harris), broadcasting (CFRB), building supplies, land development. For forty years, his name was synonymous with wealth and power in Canada.

Written in collaboration with Taylor himself during his Bahamian retirement, E.P. Taylor is the fascinating story of the creation of one of Canada' greatest business empires.

355 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Major-General (Ret'd) Richard Heath Rohmer, OC, CMM, DFC, O.Ont, KStJ, CD, OL, QC, JD, LLD (born in 1924). Canada's most decorated citizen, an aviator, a senior lawyer (aviation law), adviser to business leaders and the Government of Ontario and is a prolific writer. Rohmer was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and spent some of his early youth in Pasadena, California as well as in western Ontario at Windsor and Fort Erie.

The Peterborough Examiner's lead editorial of 14 January 2009 says this: "Rohmer, one of Canada's most colourful figures of the past half-century, was a World War II fighter pilot, later a major-general in the armed forces reserve, a high-profile lawyer and a successful novelist and biographer."

Reviews

[Reading Rohmer · Rating 1 out of 5]

In 1919, Edward Plunket Taylor is an undergrad at McGill University, penniless except for a vast family fortune. Undeterred, he invents a toaster that toasts both sides at once, a problem that had been solved in 1909. Later, he sets breakfast technology aside and concentrates on consolidating Canada's beer industry, and eliminating all the brands except basically three, because choice is for suckers. He buys lots of other things too. World War II comes, and Taylor takes a dollar-a-year job buying weapons from America for England and makes another fortune, because apparently back then a dollar went a long way. He buys more things because his hunches are always right. He buys race horses, becomes the richest, swellest, most amazing Canadian in all Canada and moves to the Bahamas to avoid paying any taxes, because he loves Canada, but he loves money just a little bit more. Richard Rohmer can't think of enough nice things to say about E.P. Taylor, or give an example of anything nice he ever did, except get rich and meet the Queen. Less of a biography and more of an advertisement for a product with no features, this is Richard Rohmer's dullest, most toadying and gullible book. It reads like the subject is holding the author's family hostage, only without the urgency.