Alan Thackray was professor of morbid histology at the Middlesex Hospital and a notable authority on breast, salivary and renal tumours. He was educated at Cambridge University, from which he won the senior university scholarship to the Middlesex Hospital. After house jobs he specialised in pathology, working at the Bland-Sutton Institute. In 1948 he was placed in charge of the department of morbid anatomy and histology. He was appointed reader in 1951. In 1966 he was appointed to the newly created chair of morbid histology at London University. He resigned from the Bland-Sutton in 1974, but continued to work at the Florence Nightingale Hospital for another 10 years. He was one of the small group of eminent pathologists who were invited by the College and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund to set up a reference panel to whom difficult or interesting histological problems could be referred. A modest, reserved man, with great charm, he was a keen photographer and a knowledgeable gardener. He died after a short illness on 10 August 2004, leaving a son (Robert) and four grandchildren.