Ryder-Cheshire Foundation History

Baroness Ryder of Warsaw, CMG, OBE

While serving with the Polish Section of the highly secret Special Operations Executive during World War II, Sue Ryder witnessed the remarkable courage of men and women embarking on hazardous operations from which many did not survive. The inspiration of their deeds led to her founding the Sue Ryder Foundation as a living memorial to those who died. After seeing the terrible destruction of war she set up homes in Eastern Europe to help sick, disabled and destitute people, especially those from concentration camps.

Group Captain Lord Cheshire of Woodhall, VC, OM, DSO and Two Bars, DFC

Leonard Cheshire was Britain’s most highly decorated WW2 airman and a British observer at the atomic bomb raid on Nagasaki. In 1948 as a highly distinguished, retired Royal Air Force pilot, Leonard Cheshire heard that an ex-serviceman he knew was dying from cancer with nowhere to go following his discharge from hospital. After determined efforts failed to find care for him, he took him into his own home and nursed him until he died. It was to become the first Cheshire home and the beginning of a world-wide humanitarian work.

In the years immediately following WW2, separate Sue Ryder and Leonard Cheshire Foundations were thus established. Subsequently Leonard Cheshire and Sue Ryder married, and set up the Ryder-Cheshire Foundation in 1959. Raphael, their first combined home, was established at Dehra Dun in northern India. The couple visited Australia to rally support for the new home in India, and the Ryder-Cheshire Foundation was started in Australia soon after. New Zealand followed and several branches of Ryder Cheshire Foundation charities were established throughout the country.