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Past WCIT Presidents

George E. Taylor
Founder of UW's Jackson School of International Studies
WCIT President: 1976 - 1987

Additional commentary on Dr. Taylor

Perhaps one of George E. Taylor's greatest life contributions was creating in the years after World War II one of the most important centers for the study of the Soviet Union and East Asia.
That center, which began at the University of Washington as the Far Eastern and Russian Institute, now is known as the Jackson School of International Studies.

"What he did was to bring some of the most distinguished scholars of the world here in the late '40s and through the '50s to study the Soviet Union, China, Japan and other countries as well," said Jere Bacharach, now director of the Jackson School.

From 1939 until 1969, with the exception of a few of the war years, Mr. Taylor, a specialist on China, headed the UW's Russian and Far Eastern Studies program. He also laid the foundation for extensive federal and foundation financial support for international studies at the UW, Bacharach said, "and he effectively bridged the relationship between the local community and the campus, bringing academic expertise to local audiences."

He helped create the Washington Council on International Trade. He was instrumental in founding the World Affairs Council, and he established the Washington World Affairs Fellows Program.

Mr. Taylor was active in community organizations up to the time of his death from cardiac arrest Friday (April 14) at his home on First Hill in Seattle. He was 94.

Bacharach said Mr. Taylor helped establish the Kluckhohn Center for the Study of Values in Bellingham and remained the research center's president until last year. The center holds international conferences every other year on the study of cultural values. He also was a wine connoisseur and was co-founder and first president of the Enological Society.

In recognition of his community contributions, an internship program, which supports students who work with internationally focused community groups, was established at the Jackson School.

"He was a really fine gentleman. And he had a fine sense of humor," said Bacharach.

Mr. Taylor retired in 1976.

Born in Coventry, England, he had lived in the United States since 1928, when he came for graduate studies at Johns Hopkins and Harvard. During much of the 1930s, he taught in China.

He was active in the Chinese resistance movement against the Japanese occupation, and, said Bacharach, the offer to come to the UW arrived just as his activities were discovered by the Japanese secret police.

"It was good timing for him to come here," Bacharach said.

During World War II, Mr. Taylor was deputy director of the Office of War Information, where he was in charge of the Pacific area and analyzed Japanese cultural attitudes toward warfare.

"His life's work was promoting cross-cultural understanding," said Gail Eshom, who was his secretary for 31 years.

Mr. Taylor wrote and edited more than a dozen books on the Far East.

"He was one of the most brilliant minds I'd ever met, and he was as handsome as could be," said his wife, Margaret Perthou Taylor.

Also surviving are three children, Claire Taylor of Palo Alto, Calif., Gordon Taylor of Portland and Robin Daugherty of Golden, Colo.; 10 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. He also is survived by two brothers, Harold and Reginald, in England, and by three stepchildren.

by Charles E. Brown
Seattle Times staff reporter