“My grandfather had great dreams of a better world” - Ruth’s memories of B.T. Clegg, Yorkshire Cancer Research founder

Yorkshire Cancer Research was born in May 1925 – 100 years ago – when some of Yorkshire’s most notable figures gathered at the Old Medical School in Leeds. Here, they founded ‘The Yorkshire Council of the British Empire Cancer Campaign’, later to become Yorkshire Cancer Research. 

One of the six key founders was Barker Thomas Clegg, a greengrocer and grain wholesaler, who was a passionate fundraiser and campaigner for better cancer care in Yorkshire. At the first meeting in May 1925, he was appointed the charity’s first Joint Honorary Secretary.

Ruth Garwood, his granddaughter, who now lives in Oxfordshire, has fond memories of her grandfather, including helping him at his greengrocer business in Hebden Bridge. Ruth said: “I liked to go with him to the banana ripening rooms where long stalks of green bananas were hanging in the dark, warmed by a gas flame. The temperature had to be just right.

“He was always interested in food and nutrition and its relationship with health, partly because of the nature of his business.”

Having experienced difficulties with his health throughout his life, B.T. Clegg developed great empathy for other people’s poor health. He became a committed fundraiser and his talent for securing donations in Yorkshire led to other regional charities seeking and receiving his support.

Over his lifetime, it is estimated that Clegg was responsible for raising over a million pounds for regional cancer charities. 

Ruth continued: “Grandad had a splendid roll top desk, absolutely packed with papers in a seemingly chaotic confusion, but he always knew where everything was. His wife, Alice, was the practical one who ran the household and made the dreams possible.” 

As Ruth recalls, Clegg was ahead of his time in much of his thinking. “I remember he was very interested in a medical book which had suggested a link between smoking and cancer, a revolutionary idea at the time.” 

Every week, 90 people in Yorkshire are told they have a smoking-related cancer. While smoking rates in Yorkshire are steadily decreasing, half a million people still smoke in the region. Yorkshire Cancer Research is committed to helping prevent smoking-related cancers by ensuring more people in Yorkshire can receive life-changing stop smoking support. 

At a time when doctors tended to be male, Clegg was also concerned that men enjoyed a privilege which was rarely gifted to women – the opportunity to see a doctor of the same sex to discuss matters relating to their intimate health.

Clegg worried that the lack of female doctors at the time was stopping many women with cancer symptoms from going to the doctor as early as they should.

Today, Yorkshire Cancer Research funds vital screening programmes and clinical trials to help more people in Yorkshire get diagnosed early. The charity is committed to working with cancer experts across the region to ensure all of Yorkshire’s diverse communities can access life-saving screening and feel supported to visit their GP with concerns around potential cancer symptoms. 

Clegg also campaigned for more care to be provided for people with cancer at the end of their life and in a letter, urged Former Health Minister Enoch Powell to provide home care support for the “vast number of people in terrible pain”. 

Over the following decades, Clegg never let go of these concerns and was one of the instigators of a conference Yorkshire Cancer Research organised in 1959 which aimed to help doctors improve care for patients with incurable cancers. Held at Leeds General Infirmary, it attracted around 50 medics and received widespread commendation, leading to similar conferences being staged in Hull and again in Leeds in the following years.

Clegg was awarded the C.B.E for services to charity in 1952 and received a Doctorate from Leeds University in 1959. When receiving his Doctorate, he was recognised as giving “a lifetime of service to good causes irrespective of colour, creed or locality”. 

For the last two years of his life, he was confined to bed by illness but continued to campaign through writing letters right up to his death in June 1961. 

When asked about her grandfather’s legacy, Ruth said: “I was always aware of his motivation and concern to help people with their health. His legacy to improve cancer research and care continues through the work of Yorkshire Cancer Research.” 

Since 1925, Yorkshire Cancer Research has been working with researchers, cancer experts, volunteers, fundraisers and people with cancer to find new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer in Yorkshire, saving lives across the region and beyond.