Leonard Cheshire

Leonard Cheshire (1917-1992), British humanitarian and charity worker, much-decorated Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot of World War II, and founder of the charity for disabled people, Leonard Cheshire.

Cheshire was born in Chester, north-western England, but grew up in Oxford where his father was a university academic. He was educated at Stowe School, Buckinghamshire, and the University of Oxford, where he studied law and languages and later joined the University Air Squadron where he trained as a pilot. When World War II broke out in 1939 he became a bomber pilot, and by 1943, aged 25, had reached the rank of group captain, the youngest such officer in the RAF at the time. At the end of the European war Cheshire commanded the legendary 617 Dam Busters squadron and had flown more than 100 missions over enemy territory. He was also the most decorated bomber pilot in the RAF, having won the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order (with two bars), and the Distinguished Flying Cross. On August 9, 1945, Cheshire was the official British observer at the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, an event that affected him profoundly.

After the war he decided to provide settlements for former servicemen and servicewomen and he started the first community in Gumley Hall, Leicestershire, in 1946. Two years later an acquaintance, Arthur Dykes, developed inoperable cancer, and as no suitable hospital bed was available for him Cheshire decided to nurse him at Le Court, a large house he had recently bought in Hampshire. Cheshire, now a Roman Catholic convert, decided he would provide care for other people and the number of residents at Le Court increased. A second home was purchased in 1950 and more homes followed. In March 1952 the Leonard Cheshire Foundation was established, and three years later the first overseas home was established, in Bombay, India. In 1959 Cheshire married Sue Ryder. She was formerly of the Special Operations Executive, a wartime organization concentrating on espionage and sabotage, and was famous for her work in Poland with concentration camp survivors. Together they embarked on a joint mission for the relief of suffering around the world. Ryder established her own charity, the Sue Ryder Foundation, now known as Sue Ryder Care.

Leonard Cheshire is now an international organization with over 250 services in 57 countries (as of 2003), caring for the terminally ill and the disabled, as well as working towards conflict resolution. In 1991 Cheshire received a baronetcy. He died at his home in Suffolk on July 31, 1992, from motor neurone disease. Sue Ryder (by this time Baroness Ryder of Warsaw) died in November 2000, aged 77.