Katharine Mary Burkill (Kit) was born in Cambridge on 25 October 1929, the daughter of John Charles Burkill, FRS, Professor of Pure Mathematics in the University of Liverpool and later Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Helen Margareta Braun-Pritchard. She was educated at the Perse School and Newnham College and University College Hospital, London. She was awarded the Muriel Edwards Prize, Newnham College Prize, Arthur Hugh Clough and Marmaduke Shield Scholarships and first class honours in parts 1 and 2 of the Natural Science Tripos. She was house physician, house surgeon and casualty senior house officer at Addenbrooke's, resident surgical officer at the Royal Marsden Hospital, senior house officer at Bromley and surgical registrar at Addenbrooke's where she was trained by Philip Ghey and the late Brian Truscott. She was then appointed registrar on the surgical rotation in Sheffield and there, in 1963, she married Frank Whitehead Taylor FRCS, consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Sheffield Royal Hospital. They had two sons and three daughters. She later resumed work at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital and was soon appointed the first consultant in charge of the accident and emergency unit at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield. She was a gifted teacher and clinician and she maintained an interest in clinical research. Her hobbies were equitation, antiques, gardening and dressmaking but she was best known as the organiser of celebrity concerts held in the school hall at Dore where they lived. Well known musicians were invited to perform in front of audiences that included many doctors, whose enjoyment was rounded off by the parties held afterwards in the Taylors' home. Kit Taylor died on 31 August 1987 after a long illness, survived by her husband and children, Tamara, Felicity, Julian, Jeremy, and Lucy.