Frederick Kräupl Taylor came to the UK in 1939 at the age of 34 as a refugee from Czechoslovakia. He had specialised there in internal medicine, but could not initially gain medical registration here. He worked for a period in the pathology laboratory at the York Retreat and, in his spare time, studied mathematics, statistics, philosophy and psychology. Later he trained as a psychiatrist and was invited by Sir Aubrey Lewis to the Maudsley Hospital, where he was a consultant from 1948 until 1971.