William Davis Taylor, 93; Third-Generation Head of the Boston Globe

William Davis Taylor, the third generation of his family to serve as publisher of the Boston Globe, died Tuesday of heart failure at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 93.

Taylor was publisher for 22 years, beginning in 1955. During his tenure, the newspaper won 11 Pulitzer Prizes and became the first major paper to call for the resignation of Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate controversy.

In the Globe’s obituary, he was praised for fostering editorial independence. “He inspired and encouraged his editors to be creative, innovative, and to do what they felt was right,” said Thomas Winship, Globe editor from 1965 to 1984.

Taylor oversaw the Globe’s move from Newspaper Row in downtown Boston, where it was founded in 1872, to Morrissey Boulevard in the Dorchester neighborhood. He also was the first chairman of Affiliated Publications Inc., the paper’s parent company, from 1973 to 1981.

He joined the family owned newspaper as a junior accountant after graduating from Harvard in 1931. He was named general manager in 1940 and publisher on the death of his father, the son of the paper’s founder, Charles H. Taylor. In 1972, Taylor was elected chairman of the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. After his retirement in 1981, he continued as a director and consultant to the Globe.