Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, O.M., F.R.S., who died on 27 June 1975 at the age of 89, was one of the great men of our subject. He was a likeable happy man with an uncomplicated character and a razor-sharp mind for which scientific investigation was a natural activity. He was engaged in research throughout the whole of his life – not only the ‘working'part of it – and the fruits of his enquiries are described in over 200 papers published between 1909 and 1974. Nearly all these papers have been republished by Cambridge University Press in the four volumes of G. I. Taylor: Scientific Papers, three of which are on the mechanics of fluids and one on the mechanics of solids. These four volumes are his legacy to us, and will be a store-house of information and a source of illumination for many years to come.