Remembering Dr Aggrey Burke FRCPsych (1943 – 2025)

Dr Burke spent much of his medical career at legacy St George’s, University of London, and later City St George’s, University of London, and was a leading campaigner against discrimination in healthcare throughout his career.

Dr Burke was born in 1943 in Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica, before moving with most members of his immediate family to Kew in 1959. His father, Eddie Burke, was the Secretary Manager at Jamaica Welfare Ltd when he was seconded to work in the UK in the Migrant Services Division of the West Indies Commission. A key part of Eddie’s secondment as the Community Development Advisor was working to reduce tension between members of the local population and migrant West Indians following racial unrest.

After graduation he began his psychiatric training in Trinidad and Tobago. He completed his training as a research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Birmingham University.

Alongside his studies, he volunteered with the grassroots self-help group Harambee Organisation, which organised a Black supplementary school to combat the neglect and abuse that Black children faced in the education system.

Dr Burke later went on to teach at the University of the West Indies – returning to the UK in 1972 to take up a research fellowship at the University of Birmingham. In 1977 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry at St George’s and consultant psychiatrist in the NHS. He was the first black British person to be appointed in this capacity.

Aggrey dedicated much of his early career to conducting studies on the mental health of repatriates at Bellevue Hospital, Jamaica, concluding that repatriation caused significant psychological harm. His work also demonstrated how deprivation is associated with mental illness in some black communities.

Following his return to the UK, he carried out psychotherapeutic work with bereaved families following the New Cross Fire, helping set up a group to attend to the emotional needs of the survivors and the families.

Dr Burke was highly regarded for his extensive research on racism and mental illness. Throughout his career and into retirement, he fought tirelessly against discrimination in healthcare and for the rights of marginalised people, sacrificing his own advancement to do so.

In 1986, along with his colleague Professor Joe Collier, he published a paper that showed clear evidence of racial and sexual discrimination in the selection of students for London medical schools. Later, after finding evidence of discrimination against Black and female students in admissions policies and interview processes at legacy St George’s, Professor Collier and Dr Burke reported this to the Commission for Racial Equality, prompting an enquiry leading to changes in admissions processes.

Speaking about the paper, Professor Collier said:

“In both his professional and personal life, Aggrey worked tirelessly against racism and the damaging effects of discrimination. When Aggrey and wrote to the Commission, he warned me that, as a white colleague exposing this discrimination, I would be attacked by the establishment, and I will never forget how he supported me through all the aggression I faced - I miss him deeply."

In 2022, Dr Burke received an honorary award from legacy St George’s, University of London (now the School of Health & Medical Sciences) in recognition of his achievements and contributions.

Tributes to Dr Aggrey Burke

When we met in 1985, we immediately ‘clicked’. Both of us worked at St George’s and while I have had many good work colleagues very few have become close friends - Aggrey did, indeed in many ways he became part of our family.

He was a quick and original thinker, who was intelligent, generous, sensitive, kind and caring. When he talked about himself, he was often quite secretive so in his last year or so when we would lunch together, he would tell snippets about his illness and its progression but never dwelt on the problems nor sought sympathy.

Aggrey was famously generous with his time towards both staff and patients, his warmth and humanity will leave a profound legacy.

Aggrey was a member of my professional development group when I started as a Consultant. He was always friendly and warm, slightly excitable and definitely impish.

He was good at treading the difficult line between holding his place as part of a conservative medical system but showing he was ready to challenge orthodoxies. He’d be interested in the things we all had to say, and when it came to his turn, he showed that he would do things his way, enjoying the chance to perform the ideas he’d been carrying around in his head without paying too much attention to the meeting agenda.

I worked with Aggrey as his senior house officer in the late 1990s, seeing patients at the old Atkinson Morley Hospital and Clare House under his guidance. From the very beginning, what struck me most about Aggrey was his generosity - with his time, his knowledge, and his attention. Our supervision sessions often stretched well beyond 5pm, not because they had to, but because conversation with Aggrey flowed so easily. He was thoughtful, compassionate, and had a particular gift for working with patients whose difficulties were complex and longstanding, approaching them with patience, curiosity, and an unwavering belief in their humanity.

Even after he retired he would think of me, sending the occasional article with a gentle enquiry about how I was keeping. Aggrey was a kind, wise, and gentle soul. He leaves behind a legacy in the patients he helped and the colleagues he influenced. He will be remembered with great affection and respect, and his loss is keenly felt.

I was saddened at the unexpected news of Aggrey's passing. I was privileged to work with him in 1995 as his Psychiatry Trainee, just over a year after arriving in the UK as an IMG. He was a great teacher, caring and compassionate and very passionate about the patient group. He showed such understanding of the complexities of the human condition, overlaid with issues of racism and health inequalities in the NHS. I learnt a lot from him, remaining friendly ever since. May his soul rest in peace and his legacy live on.

I credit him with turning my career around and having had a huge influence on my practice over the years as he opened my eyes to a range of issues I had not previously understood well, but as a result have been able to address in my own practice such as racial bias, laws of inverse care and the social determinants of health and I think if I hadn't had the opportunity to spend some time with him, my path would have been very different.