James Leatham Tennant "Jim" Birley CBE FRCP FRCPsych (1928-2013) of the Maudsley Hospital, London, was a psychiatrist and president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists from 1987 to 1990. After education at Winchester College, Birley studied medicine at University College, Oxford and St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, London. He qualified in 1952 BM BCh and then from 1952 to 1954 held junior appointments. From 1954 to 1956 he was a junior specialist in the RAMC. In 1957 he was a demonstrator in pathology at St Thomas's Hospital, where he worked under William Sargant. Birley was from 1958 to 1959 a medical registrar at North Middlesex Hospital and from 1959 to 1960 a psychiatry/neurology registrar at St Thomas's Hospital. At the Maudsley Hospital he joined the staff in 1960, became a con