About G T Embalming Service Ltd.
G T Embalming Service Ltd. was formed in 1980, by Geoff Taylor, upon the semi-retirement of his father Robert Taylor. Over the last 40 years, the company has grown to be the largest embalming service in the UK.
Philip Gore M.B.I.E. P.H.D.
Philip Gore, 7th generation funeral director, started training as a student member of the BIE in September 1978, meeting a youthful Geoff Taylor a few months later. Philip is a tutor and examiner of the BIE was international President of the BIE from 2019 – 2020.
He has deployed with Kenyon International twenty-eight times over the last twenty years, and has responded to aviation and natural disasters in the UK, Europe, America, the Caribbean, north, southern and west Africa, the middle east, the far east and the Gulf. Philip has had an interest in the contemporary history of embalming in the UK over the last one hundred years and has also lectured on the technical aspects of the art and science of embalming in Ireland, Northern Ireland, the UK, America and Australia, being particularly interested in bio-chemical and anatomical applications inherent within the embalming process. He has a very active interest in maintaining and extending the high standards set by Geoff over the last forty years.
Geoff Taylor F.B.I.E.
Geoff Taylor has been a working embalmer since 1972 and has treated in excess of 40,000 cases. Geoff held the office of National President of The British Institute of Embalmers (BIE) from 1994-1995 and is the current Treasurer of the Southern Division of the Institute, having held that position since 1990, he has also held the offices of Chairman and Secretary.
On 22nd January 1994 four embalming associations (France, Germany, Belgium and the BIE) met at Gatwick to form The European Association of Embalmers (EAE). The aim of the EAE is to improve both practical and theoretical knowledge. As vice president at that time, Geoff chaired the meeting. He has been a member since its formation.
In 1994 Geoff, along with two of his embalmers, started practical training for members of the Verband Deutscher Thanatologen (VDT , the German association of embalmers) and helped them pass their exams to become members of the BIE. Geoff has also demonstrated embalming in Munster and, along with his professional colleague Ray Hood, presented a weekend seminar in Hamburg.
Geoff has also embalmed in the Comoros Islands and the Philippines as part of the Global Partnership Disaster Victim Identification team following air crash disasters. He has also travelled to Morocco and the Falkland Islands to embalm cases for repatriation on behalf of Rowland Brothers International.
In February 2012 Geoff was invited to speak about Trade Embalming at the Australasian Division of the BIE conference in Melbourne, Australia, along with his professional colleague Philippe Dubresson, who also gave a presentation on Facial Reconstruction and the correct use of cosmetics.
Geoff Taylor was made a Fellow of the British Institute of Embalmers in 2013.
Robert Taylor M.B.I.E.
Robert Taylor left school in Battersea, London and started work at St. Thomas’s Hospital in 1933. During the war he joined the Red Berets paratroop regiment and parachuted into Arnhem in 1944. He was captured and spent time in a POW camp for the duration
After the war he returned to work at St Thomas’s and helped to exhume American servicemen, then watched American embalmers prepare the deceased for repatriation back to the USA. It was then he decided he wanted to become an embalmer and went on to study with Lear of London Embalming School. He qualified in 1955 and worked for them until going freelance in the 1960’s. Geoff joined him in 1972 and qualified in 1980, the year Robert decided to semi-retire, and GT Embalming Service was formed. Robert fully retired in 1982.