Francis Taylor, 1st Baron Maenan

William Francis Kyffin Taylor, 1st Baron Maenan (9 July 1854 – 22 September 1951) was a prominent English barrister and judge. He was a Railway and Canal Commissioner from 1930 to its abolition in 1949, and was its last member.

Background and education Taylor was the son of the Venerable William Francis Taylor, Archdeacon of Liverpool. He was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, educated at Liverpool College (of which he became vice-president in 1927 ) and later attended Exeter College, Oxford, where he graduated as BA in 1877. He studied law at the Inner Temple and became barrister in 1879.

Legal and judicial career Taylor's legal career was one of prestige, becoming a Q.C. in 1895 and holding the office of Presiding Judge of the Court of Passage between 1903 and 1948.

Other offices he held included Recorder of Bolton in 1901–03, Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1905, Justice of the Peace for Shropshire (1916), Deputy Lieutenant of Shropshire (1931), Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for Shropshire, Judge of Appeal for the Isle of Man between 1918 and 1921, Vice-President of the War Compensation Court between 1920 and 1928 and only three years before his death, making him then the oldest serving judge in Great Britain.

Family Taylor married Mary, a daughter of Robert Crooks, in 1883.

In later life he had a country home in Shropshire at Gadlas Hall in Dudleston Heath, which he rented out to Charles de Gaulle's family during their exile in England in the Second World War.

He died in September 1951, aged 97. His title became extinct on his death, as he had no male heir.