Encyclopedia > British Empire Leprosy Relief Association
LEPRA, originally known as the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association, is a medical development charity working towards care of people with Hansen's disease (leprosy).
The organisation was founded in 1924 by Sir Leonard Rogers in an attempt to cure all cases of leprosy within the British Empire. In the 1930s it became associated with Toc H and its founder, the Reverend 'Tubby' Clayton, and volunteers were recruited to go to Africa and India, which had some of the highest incidences of the disease. Television and radio appeals boosted the awareness of the charity in the 1960s as LEPRA started work in Malawi.
In 1996 LEPRA worked with the BBC children's television series Blue Peter, raising £2.8m.
Once in France Clayton was approached by the British Sixth Division's senior chaplain, Neville Talbot, with the idea of establishing a rest house for serving soldiers near the fierce battleground of Ypres in Flanders.
With war renewed in 1939, Clayton established a new Toc H club in 1940 at Scapa Flow (in the Orkneys).
The 'Pool of Peace' - a lake created by one of the 19 mines exploded by the British signalling the start of the Battle of Messines, is also owned and maintained by the Toc H movement, also near Ypres.
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