page_title: Thomas Griffith Taylor
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Griffith Taylor / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: The image is from the en:National Library of Australia collection, catalogue number nla.pic-vn4390289. Caption: en:Thomas Griffith Taylor mounted on a horse, Australian Capital Territory, Canberra, 1913. URL = http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.pic-vn4390289
context_page_description: Thomas Griffith "Grif" Taylor was an English-born geographer, anthropologist and world explorer. He was a survivor of Captain Robert Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica. Taylor was a senior academic geographer at universities in Sydney, Chicago, and Toronto. His writings on geography and race were controversial.
context_section_description: Taylor was born in the town of Walthamstow, England, to parents James Taylor, a metallurgical chemist, and Lily Agnes, née Griffiths. Within a year after his birth, the family had moved to Serbia where his father was manager of a copper mine. Three years later, they returned to Britain when his father became director of analytical chemistry for a major steelworks company. In 1893, the family emigrated to New South Wales Australia, where James secured a position as a government metallurgist. Taylor, age 13, attended The King's School in Sydney. He enrolled in arts at the University of Sydney in 1899, later transferring to science, attaining his Bachelor of Science in 1904, and Bachelor of Engineering (mining and metallurgy) in 1905. In 1904 he joined the teaching staff at Newington College. Awarded an 1851 Exhibition scholarship in 1907 to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a B.A. [Research], Taylor was elected a fellow of the Geological Society, London in 1909. While at Cambridge, he established strong friendships with (Sir) Raymond Priestley, Canada's Charles Wright and the Australian Frank Debenham who all shared his passion for Antarctic exploration and would all travel with him to the Antarctic as part of the Terra Nova Expedition 1910–1913.
caption: Thomas Griffith Taylor on a horse, Canberra, 1913
  Image: National Library of Australia
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