John Blair Logan Taylor was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, on 13 June 1923, the son of John Binnie Taylor, a GP, and his wife, Margaret Godfrey Logan. He received his early education first at the Glasgow Academy and later at Manchester Grammar School. He entered the Manchester University Medical School in 1939 and won the Dickinson scholarship at the end of his pre-clinical years and graduated in 1946. He became first a house surgeon and then a senior house officer in the Manchester Royal Infirmary before commencing a series of registrar appointments. He married Margaret Alice Jackson SRN on 7 September 1948, and they had two children, a son, Ian Godfrey, who became a chartered surveyor, and a daughter, Alison Margaret, who became a librarian. During his extensive apprenticeship he gained the final Fellowship in 1952 and after serving as a senior surgical registrar on the Manchester rotation he was appointed a consultant general surgeon to the Bury Area Health Authority in 1967. In this appointment he paid particular interest to urological problems and to administration. Throughout his life he was particularly interested in wine, and was a generous host. He enjoyed ornithology and was an enthusiastic hill walker. He loved the countryside and spent time in both Scotland and the Yorkshire dales. He retired at 62 years of age and enjoyed over ten happy years of retirement before developing an aggressive lymphoma which was treated by chemotherapy with little success. He died on 10 August 1995 survived by his wife, children and three grandchildren.