Professor Taylor is a social historian who for many years taught at the polytechnics, later universities, of Teesside and Huddersfield and, more recently, at the Huddersfield & District University of the Third Age. He is best known for his publications on crime and policing, most recently Beerhouses, Brothels and Bobbies: Policing by Consent in Huddersfield and the Huddersfield District in the mid-nineteenth century but has a long-standing professional interest in popular leisure in general and popular music in particular, lecturing on the subject to a wide range of audiences.