Raymond Illsley obituary
04 June 2013
Raymond Illsley (second from left)
Raymond Illsley, who from 1986 onwards was a Professorial Fellow in the School of Social Sciences as it was then passed away last week, at the age of 93.
Before coming to Bath, Raymond had been at Aberdeen University for many years, and was the first Head of their Sociology Department. The photograph shows him (second from the left) at their 40th anniversary, in 2005. He was also director of the MRC Medical Sociology Unit in Aberdeen from its founding in 1965 until his retirement in 1984.
Raymond was a key figure, both nationally and internationally. Arguably he invented the discipline of medical sociology; but he was also a great believer in inter-disciplinarity, working effectively with epidemiologists, social statisticians, and health economists. He was a major contributor to the debates over health inequality, organising international collaborations and conferences and himself producing some of the most important research findings in the area. He was a leading member of the Council of ESRC/SSRC, chairing one of its most important committees, the Social Affairs Committee.
When he retired from Aberdeen, he moved to live in Box Hill, and became affiliated with this University. For the first four years he led a European research consortium "Age Care Research in Europe”. Thereafter he continued his research, concerned in particular with the social context of health and illness and the policy implications thereof, working with international agencies such as the World Health Organisation.
Raymond provided sage advice to many in the Department and was a great peace maker.
Since the turn of the century his attention was mainly on his wife, who suffered from dementia, and his extensive garden. He continued however to follow the UK and international policy debates: during the difficult passage of 'Obamacare', when Republican opponents were citing the British NHS as a nightmare to be avoided, Raymond wrote a piece about his own experience of the NHS, which his US contacts arranged to be published there.
The funeral will take place at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, June 7th at the West Wiltshire Crematorium near Trowbridge.
