Dr C.D. Baker, FRCGP (Westminster Medical School 1941)

Provided by Mrs Muriel J Baker

Carey Denis Baker, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., F.R.C.G.P., was born in Tooting, South London, on 11 May 1917.  Educated at the Bec School, Tooting, he won a place at King’s College, London in 1935 to study medicine, and went on to Westminster Hospital Medical School in London in 1937.  While still a houseman, he courageously volunteered for firewatching night duties during the Blitz of 1940. His training was cut short in 1941 when called up to join the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, serving as a medical officer on board HMS Greenwich in the North Atlantic.  On his return to Britain, victory was declared in Europe, but he was posted again, this time to Ceylon supporting aircraft carrier personnel in the Far East.  After the defeat of the Japanese, he supervised the closure of the military hospital at Colombo single-handedly, eventually returning to England in 1946. During the war, he had married his first wife, Betty, and their first child, Christine, had been born. In 1947 he wrote a book (“The House You Live In”) dedicated to her.

In the immediate post-war years he joined group practices in Worthing, Tamworth (Staffs) and finally South Woodford (London), to which he dedicated the next 35 years of his professional life.  In 1948, he witnessed, and was an enthusiastic advocate of, the start of the NHS, later becoming a member of the Essex NHS Executive Committee, and a member of the North-East Metropolitan Hospital Management Committee.  He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 1967 in recognition of his work as a founding member of the College, and his contribution to early innovations in general practice, such as the appointment system, age-sex registers, health visitor attachments, practice nurses, dedicated clinics and morbidity/mortality registers.  With financial support from the Medical Research Council and Upjohn Travelling Fellowships, he researched and published a number of papers on patient-doctor contact, non-attenders in general practice, and smoking addiction and treatment. The latter was collaborative and ground-breaking work with Dr Michael Russell at the Addiction Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London. As early as 1979, for example, they were pioneering the idea of prescribed nicotine chewing gum for withdrawing addicts.

Carey Baker was a dedicated member of staff at the Woodford Jubilee Hospital, until its closure in 1981, becoming chairman of the Medical Staff Committee, and Clinical Assistant in Gynaecology. He gave freely of his time in a number of voluntary capacities – as Lecturer in First Aid for St John’s Ambulance and the British Red Cross Society, and Medical Officer for a local children’s home (Mill Grove). Many of his other non-medical commitments reflect his deeply-held Christian convictions: the Boys’ Brigade, the Scripture Gift Mission, and the Culion Leprosy Mission, Philippines among others.  He gave generously of his time and energy in supporting these and many other charities.  The family were shocked by the sudden death of Betty in 1968.

After retirement from the Woodford practice in 1982, Carey moved to Canterbury, where he continued his work for the SGM, the Boys’ Brigade, and various charities (including Orbis). With lay preaching and a monthly column, he gave support to local churches.  He always enjoyed reading, gardening, travelling and walking, and offered warm hospitality to many friends far and near.  His large and growing family (three children, eleven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren) was a constant source of interest and pleasure for him.  He died peacefully at home in March 2008, aged 90, and is survived by his second wife, Muriel, whom he married in 1971. Carey’s body was bequeathed to University College, London, for medical education and training.