Professor emeritus in the history department of Brock University, Robert Ratcliffe Taylor was born and raised in Victoria, where he lives. He has a BA in History and English from the University of British Columbia; an MA in History, also from UBC; and a PhD in History from Stanford University. He has written on the history of German architecture, on the Welland Canal, and on the city of St. Catharines, Ontario. He serves as a volunteer docent at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. He has self-published books about Victoria. He has also written an excellent summary on the life and work of early B.C. architect Hermann Otto Tiedemann. See Tiedemann entry.

In The Ones Who Have to Pay: The Soldier-Poets of Victoria BC in the Great War 1914-1918 (Trafford 2013) Taylor examines and explains why the culture of Victoria was deeply loyal to the British Empire and the results of that ardent loyalism to the men who enlisted.

In The Birdcages: British Columbia's First Legislative Buildings (Friesen 2019), Taylor tells of the little-known history of the Birdcages, built between 1859 - 1864 during the tumultuous times of the gold rushes. According to the book's publicity, the Birdcages "were build amid controversy and derided for their style. The brainchild of Governor James Douglas, they resembled, according to journalist/politician Amor de Cosmos, 'something between a Dutch toy and a Chinese pagoda.'" Taylor describes each of the five structures, including the Court house and the Hall of Assembly. He shows how civil servants and politicians of the time regarded the Birdcages as a workplace; the public regarded them as civic architecture. The career of their designer, the mysterious Hermann Otto Tiedemann, one of Victoria's early 'characters' is recounted as are the contributions of local contractors and tradesmen. The Birdcages was demolished in 1898.

BOOKS:

The Word in Stone: The Role of Architecture in the National Socialist Ideology (University of California Press, 1974) 9780520021938

The Spencer Mansion: A House, a Home, and an Art Gallery (Touchwood, 2012) $19.95 978-1-927129-27-2

The Ones Who Have to Pay: The Soldier-Poets of Victoria BC in the Great War 1914-1918 (Trafford 2013)

Imperial Eden: Victoria BC in Verse c. 1858-1920 (Trafford 2014)

The Birdcages: British Columbia's First Legislative Buildings (Friesen 2019)

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
The Spencer Mansion: A House, a Home, and an Art Gallery

Reviews of the author's work by BC Studies:
The Ones Who Have to Pay: The Soldiers-Poets of Victoria BC in the Great War 1914-1918

[BCBW 2020]