Stephen James Lake Taylor, Baron Taylor (SJL Taylor) (30 December 1910 – 1 February 1988) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

Biography

Born in

High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, south-southeast of Ayl ...

, Stephen was the son of John Taylor, a civil engineer, and his wife Beatrice (Lake) Taylor. Educated at

Stowe School , motto_translation = I stand firm and I stand first , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent school, day & boarding , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Headmaster ...

and then at St Thomas Hospital Medical School, London, where he qualified in 1934. When war broke out he joined the

RNVR The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

as a neuropsychiatrist. But in 1941, the government transferred him to the Ministry of Information. He worked on a plan to publish information about health services to the public during wartime. From 1940 to 1944 he was Director of

Home Intelligence Home Intelligence was a division of the Ministry of Information (MOI) which was a government social research organisation responsible for monitoring civilian morale in Britain during the Second World War. Initial planning The Ministry of Inform ...

and the Wartime Social Survey in the Ministry of Information. But by 1944 it appears he was already working for the Labour Party to achieve an electoral victory at the war's end. Elected as the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for

Barnet Barnet may refer to: People *Barnet (surname) * Barnet (given name) Places United Kingdom *Chipping Barnet or High Barnet, commonly known as Barnet, one of three focal towns of the borough below. *East Barnet, a district of the borough below; an ...

in July 1945, he was appointed

Parliamentary Private Secretary A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom who acts as an unpaid assistant to a minister or shadow minister. They are selected from backbench MPs as the 'eyes and ears' of the minister in the H ...

to the

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, ...

and

Lord President of the Council The lord president of the Council is the presiding officer of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and the fourth of the Great Officers of State (United Kingdom), Great Officers of State, ranking below the Lord High Treasurer but above the ...

from 1947. He was an expert policy advisor on the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

. In 1951 he was invited by the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust to carry out a survey of

general practice General practice is the name given in various nations, such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to the services provided by general practitioners. In some nations, such as the US, similar services may be describe ...

. He went on to make a significant contribution to the development of general practice, holding a number of positions on medical boards and other organisations, including two stints as a member of Harlow New Town Development Corporation. In 1955 he was appointed medical director to Harlow health Industrial Health Service for a period of nine years. But it appears was in such demand, that two years later resumed his role into retirement. Taylor was instrumental in the creation of Health Centres in Harlow. His model was rolled out to all major city centres across Britain, developing dental and nursing support within group practices. His survey of 1954 entitled ''Good General Practice'' was based on qualitative interviews at practices already identified as performing well by Joseph Collings report, ''General Practice in England : A Reconnaissance'', (1950). NHS GP profession was still in its infancy, requiring much pioneering work to improve its services. Taylor sat on the Central Health Services Council, chaired by

Sir Harry Cohen ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...

, the boss of Tesco. Local doctors had traditionally worked alone or in pairs, but the report resulted in group practice becoming the norm in Britain.

House of Lords

On 7 August 1958, he was created a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

by letters patent as Baron Taylor, of

Harlow Harlow is a large town and local government district located in the west of Essex, England. Founded as a new town, it is situated on the border with Hertfordshire and London, Harlow occupies a large area of land on the south bank of the upp ...

in the County of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

on Gaitskell's recommendation. In 1962, he mediated the end to the

Saskatchewan doctors' strike The Saskatchewan doctors' strike was a 23-day labour action exercised by medical doctors in 1962 in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan in an attempt to force the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government of Saskatchewan to drop its program ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. From 1964 he served the Labour government as

Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations was a junior ministerial post in the United Kingdom Government from 1947 until 1966. The holder was responsible for assisting the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in dealing with B ...

and

Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies was a junior Ministerial post in the United Kingdom government, subordinate to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and, from 1948, also to a Minister of State. Under-Secretaries of State for the Col ...

. Lord Taylor objected to Labour's efforts to "abolish private medical practice, to prevent part-time medical work within the NHS and to abolish education...by destroying freedom of choice." He resigned from Labour Party in 1981 to sit with the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

.''The Times,'' 'Peer Leaves Labour', 8 July 1981. Lord Taylor was also President and Vice-Chancellor of

Memorial University of Newfoundland Memorial University of Newfoundland, also known as Memorial University or MUN (), is a public university in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, based in St. John's, with satellite campuses in Corner Brook, elsewhere in Newfoundland and ...

from 1967 to 1973. After he retired from this position he became visiting professor of community medicine at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Personal life

Taylor married Charity Clifford, a medical doctor and later Governor of

Holloway Prison HM Prison Holloway was a closed category prison for adult women and young offenders in Holloway, London, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It was the largest women's prison in western Europe, until its closure in 2016. Hist ...

, in 1939. He died in

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...

aged 77.

Books

*1949 ''Shadows in the Sun: the Story of the Fight Against Tropical Diseases'' (with

Phyllis Gadsden Phyllis is a feminine given name which may refer to: People * Phyllis Bartholomew (1914–2002), English long jumper * Phyllis Drummond Bethune (née Sharpe, 1899–1982), New Zealand artist * Phyllis Calvert (1915–2002), British actress * Phyl ...

) *''A Natural History of Everyday Life'' *1961 ''First Aid in the Factory and on the Building Site and Farm, in the Shop, Office and Warehouse'' *1964 ''Mental Health and Environment'' (with Sidney Chave)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Stephen Taylor, Baron 1910 births 1988 deaths Fellows of the Royal College of General Practitioners Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Labour Party (UK) life peers UK MPs 1945–1950 UK MPs who were granted peerages Memorial University of Newfoundland alumni Social Democratic Party (UK) life peers British general practitioners Canadian university and college chief executives Ministers in the Wilson governments, 1964–1970 Life peers created by Elizabeth II People educated at Stowe School