Patrick Clarke was a consultant neurological surgeon at Middlesbrough General Hospital. He was born in Cheltenham on 16 April 1921, the son of Edward Rutland Clarke, a headmaster of a grammar school who had gained the Military Cross in 1917, and Edith Frances Clarke née Smith, a housewife. He was educated at St George's School in Windsor and then Felsted School, where he was an exhibitioner. From 1938, he studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital Medical School. He won the junior pathology prize and the hospital prize for medicine and was joint editor of *St Mary's Hospital Gazette*. He qualified in 1944. After resident medical officer and casualty officer posts at Putney and St Mary's, in May 1945 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a captain. He served until November 1947. From 1948 to 1949 he was a house surgeon at York County Hospital. He then attended the FRCS course at Guy's Hospital. He returned to York in August 1949 as a surgical registrar. In 1951, he became a surgical specialist for the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Two years later, he returned to England and began his training in neurosurgery as a senior registrar with George Frederick Rowbotham at Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1957 he was appointed to his consultant post at Middlesbrough General Hospital, a role he held until his retirement in 1986. At Middlesbrough he founded the neurosurgical department and for six years worked single-handed. From 1974, he was also an honorary consultant neurosurgeon for the Yorkshire Regional Health Authority. He was a member of the St Luke's Hospital management committee in Middlesbrough and of the Cleveland Area Health Authority. He was an honorary associate lecturer in neurosurgery at Newcastle University from 1970 and a clinical tutor in postgraduate medicine in the South Tees District from 1971 to 1974. He was president of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, of the North of England Surgical Society and the North of England Neurological Association. He was a member of the advisory council of the European Association of Neurological Societies and of the editorial board of *Acta Neurochirurgica*. Outside medicine he enjoyed reading, music and walking. In 1950, he married Margaret Catherine (Kitty) née Waugh. They had two sons - Michael and Richard. Patrick Reginald Rudland Clarke died on 27 February 2015. He was 93.