Peter Large
British disability rights campaigner (1931–2005)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Peter Large (16 October 1931 - 23 January 2005)[1] was a British disability rights campaigner.
Large attended Enfield Grammar School from 1943 to 1950,[2] before reading civil engineering at UCL, obtaining a BSc in 1953.[1][3] He went on to national service in the Royal Navy, before joining Shell International as an engineer in 1956.[1]
However, in 1962, Large contracted polio while working in Indonesia[3] and spent three years in hospital.[1] He was wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life.[2][3] Despite this, by 1966 he was able to return to work as a civil servant at the Ministry of Technology, and later at the Department of Trade and Industry.[1][3] Large became a senior scientific officer in February 1976, retiring in 1991.[1]
Disability campaigning
While working as a civil servant, Large helped write parts of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970and the Social Security Benefits Bill 1974.[3]
In 1968, Large was invited to join the Joint Committee on Mobility for the Disabled by the founding chairman, Denny Denly.[2] Large became chairman in 1971, continuing until 1997, when he became president from 1997 to 2005.[2] He was also chairman of the Association of Disabled Professionals from 1971 to 1993[2][3] and on the executive committee of Radar from 1977 to 2001, serving as vice-chairman from 1995 to 1999.[3]
From 1973 to 1993, Large was parliamentary advisor to the Disability Income Group and in 1977 he chaired the Silver Jubilee Access Committee, publishing a report titled "Can Disabled People Go Where You Go?".[3][4] In 1978, he was appointed by minister for disabled people Alf Morris to lead an inquiry into disability discrimination in the UK.[1]
In 1988, Large worked with Nicholas Scott, the then Minister for Social Security, to set up the Independent Living Fund, designed to give disabled people the funding necessary to live independently.[3]
Large was made MBE in 1974, CBE in 1987 and knighted in 1993.[2][5] He received the Harding Award in 1992 and a lifetime achievement award from Radar in December 2004.[2]
Personal life
Large married his first wife, Susy Barber[a], in 1962.[1][3][6] They had a son, George, and two daughters, Anne and Julia.[1] Following Susy's death from kidney failure in 1982, Large married Sheenah McCaffrey in 1991, acquiring three stepchildren.[1]
Large died at home in Warlingham, Surrey, in 2005, aged 73.[1]
Footnotes
- Listed in the Telegraph as Susy Fisher.