Vale Keith Taylor
A personal reflection by Professor Leon Mann AO, Honorary Professorial Fellow, MSPS
Keith Taylor. May 11, 1932-January 4, 2025.
Keith Taylor’s passing at the age of 92 years marks the end of an era. Keith was one of the last surviving staff members who helped develop and grow the Melbourne Psychology Department, founded in 1946, in its expansionary years 1960 – 1990.
I came to know Keith when I returned from Yale University in 1965 to a Lectureship at Melbourne. We began teaching a social research methods course with Ronald Taft, a leading light in the Department. Keith and I continued our collaboration after Ron moved to Monash University. At the time I was busy studying queues –marathon football ticket queues, bus stop queues, bank queues—any queue where people waited patiently for service and did not mind being interviewed. Keith and I coauthored an article, The effect of motives upon estimates of numbers in waiting lines, published in the prestigious Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1969. We measured accuracy of estimated place in queues of varying length where the service or item was in limited supply. We found, as in life, some queuers were accurate, some overestimated their chances, some underestimated their chances. Queuing might seem a mundane activity, but some say it is a metaphor for life’s journey, especially when in God’s waiting room toward the end.
Keith balanced my Australian brashness with his British politeness. Keith, almost blind in his right eye from birth, would squint at me and the world. For almost 30 years Keith was a dependable, loyal, and valued member of the Melbourne Psychology Department. I take pleasure in looking at the staff photos from 1948-1972 hanging near my 11th floor office in the Redmond Barry Building. I see staff members of the Department’s adolescent years dating from the 1960s: Keith Taylor, Oscar Oeser, Sam Hammond, Alastair Heron, Paul Lafitte, Malcolm MacMillan, Ron Greig, Ron Taft, Alex Wearing, Gordon Stanley, Godfrey Gardner, Warren Bartlett, Franta Knopfelmacher, Pat Leaper, Norma Grieve, Margaret Gilchrist, Irene Kinsman, and many others. In the staff photo of 1966, Keith is in the back row standing in front of Richard Trahair and next to Deirdre Moore. I am standing next to Richard Trahair.
Keith was born in Ilford, Essex, Britain on May 11, 1932, during the Great Depression. The town of Ilford is now part of greater London. Britain endured continual German blitz bombing and threat of invasion during World War II. Keith spoke about the mass bombing of London, September 1940 – May 1941.
After the War, Keith trained and worked as a social worker, completing a Diploma of Social Studies at University College of Leicester in 1952. He then studied psychology, gaining a BA from the University of Manchester in 1957, and an MA from the University of London in 1960. Keith met Sue, a postgraduate student in education at Leicester. They were married in August 1963. Keith applied for a Senior Lectureship in Psychology in the University of Melbourne and was appointed in February 1964 during the decade of expansion in Australian tertiary education. Keith coordinated the Post Graduate Diploma of Psychology program, and taught courses in vocational guidance, occupational psychology and human resource management. He later coordinated the Masters program in Applied Psychology (Occupational). He began work on a PhD thesis, Orientations to Work, supervised by Sam Hammond, and was awarded a Doctorate by the University in 1975.
Keith was attracted to John Holland’s theory of Vocational Choice which asserts people of different personality types seek work environments where they can express their values and attitudes and are therefore more likely to be satisfied and successful in their careers. Keith visited Holland at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1970. While in the US, Keith and Sue visited me at Harvard University. Later, Keith with Jan Lokan of the Australian Council for Educational Research, published an edited volume of research – Holland in Australia: A Vocational Choice Theory in Research and Practice (ACER 1986).
In November 1978, Keith took secondment from the Department to become the first National Executive Director of the Australian Psychological Society between 1978 and1982. APS at the time, with around 3600 academic and professional members, needed greater direction, coordination between academics and practitioners, and engagement in professional, community and policy affairs. Keith energetically took up to the challenge. He worked closely with the APS Council and Executive, and embarked on a tour of APS Branches, Divisions, and Interest Groups, meeting academic and professional members, doing media interviews and publishing articles, and liaising with other scientific and professional organisations. Keith was a skilful organiser and influencer. He helped steer APS toward a stronger and more inclusive organisation by the time he returned to the University in 1983.
Keith was Deputy Department Chairman in 1974-5, for brief periods in 1977 – 1978, and again in 1990. Keith took leave from the University from 1984 to1987 to take the position of Associate Professor in the School of Management, National University of Singapore. I visited Keith and Sue in Singapore. They were gracious hosts. The Government of Singapore, led by President Lee Kuan Yew, championed prosperity through cooperation, hard work and efficiency. Keith invited me to a School of Management event to celebrate team efficiency in the School, with prizes awarded for teams with the cleanest office, enquiries answered most promptly, and most paper clips and paper saved. I thought fondly of Melbourne.
Keith, still a Senior Lecturer, retired from the Melbourne Department of Psychology in 1990 aged 58 years. Ron Taft interviewed Keith about his work and career in November 1990. The University’s promotion policy was to recognise research productivity above teaching excellence and University service. Keith was philosophical about his lack of promotion. He said, “Well to be frank, I came to Melbourne as a Senior Lecturer in 1964 and it is now 1990 and I am still a Senior Lecturer. Whether I have been treated badly or fairly is beside the point. It has gone on long enough and I don’t want to be a Senior Lecturer for another seven years”.
Still active, Keith moved to Hong Kong where he was appointed Reader (Associate Professor) and Acting Head of the Department of Business and Management at City Polytechnic Hong Kong, 1991 – 1994. He was then appointed Professor in the Department of Management, City University of Hong Kong, 1995 – 1997. Keith clearly relished working in Asia. He was vindicated in his career moves and John Holland would have been pleased. In 1988 when Keith was 65, he retired and the family returned to Melbourne. He maintained his contact with the Department as an Honorary, and resumed his love affair with Hawthorn Football Club.
During his career Keith published more than 40 articles, chapters and an edited book, most on career and vocational choice, work motivation, unemployment and human resource management. His most unlikely article was written in the early 1960s when he was a Research Assistant to a Lecturer in Psychology, Wladyslaw (Wladek) Sluckin of the University of Leicester. Keith Taylor could claim that he, unlike most psychologists, had an article published in the prestigious journal Nature (see K.F Taylor and W. Sluckin “Flocking of domestic chicks” Nature 1964. 208.108-109).
Keith mentored and supervised approximately 35 honours students and 45 postgraduate students while at Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong. He served on editorial boards of the Australian Journal of Psychology, Asia-Pacific Journal of Management, Journal of Occupational Psychology, and British Journal of Guidance and Counselling.
Together with Ron Taft, Keith discussed Psychology and the Australian Zeitgeist in Mary Nixon and Ronald Taft’s Psychology in Australia: Achievements and Prospects (Pergamon. 1977. 36-51.) They observed there was not a unique Australian psychology, but a synthesis of Anglo and American influences in research perspectives, topics and in teaching. They pointed to opportunities for cross cultural research and connection between western and eastern traditions in the study of behaviour.
Rosemary Wearing wrote to me following Keith’s passing. “Keith was a fine colleague of Alex over many decades. But he was so much more than that. He was a person with a unique combination of intellectual brilliance, humility, compassion, and utter courage as he persevered with his blindness. In Alex’s last few years, Keith insisted on meeting us in Victoria Street Richmond for a long conversation over coffee. To Alex and me he was a rare combination of a Renaissance sage and Saint. Alex said he thought of Keith as Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for all Seasons” a man of integrity with no combative traits… like to think of Keith at peace, away from the tumult and ravages of our present world. I will grieve quietly but in deep thankfulness for knowing him.”
Keith’s eyesight and health failed completely in the last 10 years of his life. His meetings became less frequent with old friends and colleagues. I recall greeting Keith at the Seventieth Anniversary Celebration of the School in 2016. It was the last time we met. Keith and I were colleagues at Melbourne for only three years, 1965-1968, but I am grateful we maintained contact over the years.
I mourn the passing of a selfless, brave, decent and committed man who made a difference through his academic leadership, dedicated teaching and supervision, and long service to the profession of psychology.
Leon Mann. January 22, 2025