Scottish botanist Sir George Taylor served as Keeper of the Department of Botany at the British Museum (Natural History) and as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He was also Botanical Secretary of the Linnean Society of London.
Taylor was brought up in Edinburgh, where his father worked as a gilder. The Taylor family struggled financially and as a boy George worked for a fishmonger, who paid him in sandwiches. An elder sister provided for him to attend a well-reputed school (George Heriot's) and Taylor went on to enter Edinburgh University, where he was encouraged to concentrate on botany by James R. Matthews. It was this teacher who guided his research towards Meconopsis. Taylor would later produce the definitive monograph, An Account of the Genus Meconopsis (1934).
Achieving First Class Honours in Botany in 1926, Taylor won the Vans Dunlop Scholarship, worth £300. Keen to use the money to undertake fieldwork abroad, he organised a trip to South Africa in 1927-1928 and purchased a motorcycle for local travelling. On his return from this expedition he applied for the position of Assistant Keeper of Botany at the British Museum (Natural History). Successful, he began work in the department's General Herbarium and within a few years was offered the opportunity to jointly lead an expedition to East Africa in 1934-1935. He travelled again in 1938, joining Frank Ludlow, George Sherriff and Frank Kingdon-Ward collecting in Tibet and Bhutan, where he encountered his specialist interest, Meconopsis. As well as his specialisms Meconopsis and African floristics, Taylor became an authority on the aquatic Podostemataceae family (especially the genus Potamogeton), but found his true metiér in botanical administration.
After a break carrying out war service in Yorkshire in the 1940s, Taylor returned to the British Museum and was appointed Keeper of Botany in 1950. Six years later he was approached to succeed Sir Edward Salisbury as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he set about reversing a malaise that had set in at the organisation and established the Ashby Committee to review the Gardens' mission. Under his leadership many parts of Kew were rejuvenated, including the glasshouses and Heath Garden, the Jodrell Laboratory was opened, herbarium facilities were extended and Wakehurst Place was leased.
Taylor's excellent work was recognised in 1962 with a knighthood, and in 1963 he was admitted as an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners. He was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal in 1956 and was made FRS in 1968. Taylor retired from Kew in May 1971, after 15 years as director, and returned to Scotland. He continued to serve as an advisor to the government and on a number of committees, and became involved with local groups such as the Scottish Rock Garden Club. He was married four times; to Alice Pendrich (marriage dissolved), Norah English (d. 1967), Beryl, Lady Colwyn (d. 1987), and finally to June Maitland.
Sources:
B. Burbidge, 1993, "Obituary: Sir George Taylor", The Independent, 16 November 1993
F. Last, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellows Obituaries:
www.royalsoced.org.uk/fellowship/obits/obits_alpha/taylor_george.pdf, accessed 20 December 2011
R. D. Meikle, 1972, "Sir George Taylor", Kew Bulletin, 27(1): 1-2
R.D. Meikle and R.A. Davies, 1994, "George Taylor (1904-1993)", Taxon, 43(3): 510-512.
