He embarked for the Middle East in December 1917 and served as a sapper with the 1st Australian Wireless Signal Squadron, Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force.

[3] He exhibited his work in Australia, Europe, London and the United States of America, and in 1938 was elected an associate of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain for a portfolio of male figure studies.

Recognizing the significance of photography to Australian history, in 1943 Burke published a series of articles on early photographers, among them William Jevons, J. W. Lindt and Charles Kerry.

[1] In 1952 Burke located the Holtermann Collection of wet-plate negatives and recommended its donation to the Mitchell Library in Sydney;[4] in a shed in Chatswood, New South Wales, glass plates created by Beaufoy Merlin and Charles Bayliss were ranged in 'neat stacks of cedar boxes of various dimensions, each with slotted fittings which held the large negatives in perfect preservation.'

His other interests included bushwalking, native flora and fauna, genetics, maps and map-making, amateur radio, architecture and engineering.