Kenneth Herbert Taylor was born on 7 August 1915, the fourth in a line of a family of doctors, and was educated at Epsom College and St Thomas's Hospital, graduating in 1938. At the outbreak of the second world war he joined the RAMC and served with the Welsh Guards during the evacuation from Dunkirk. He was then transferred to the 57th Anti-tank Regiment for service in North Africa and Italy. After the war Taylor returned to St Thomas's to complete his surgical training and he took the FRCS in 1946. He then held registrar posts at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, and at the Royal Free Hospital, and in 1952 was appointed consultant surgeon to the Aylesbury and High Wycombe Group. He was a general surgeon whose professional competence was appreciated by his colleagues, and whose teaching ability helped a large number of young surgeons from home and abroad who worked for him. Taylor's characteristics made him a good committee man and he was therefore called upon to act in this capacity, not only locally and with the regional board, but also as a member of the Council of the Section of Surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a founder member and also at one time President of the Chiltern Medical Society. He employed his leisure time in gardening at home and at his cottage in Norfolk where he also enjoyed sailing with his friends. He had a very happy family life with his wife and two daughters and a son who qualified in medicine. Unfortunately his last six months were complicated by a malignant tumour of the lower jaw, and although he bore this condition with great courage he died in Wycombe Hospital on 9 September 1972 at the age of 57. His wife and family survived him.