Paul Hunt

Paul Hunt (1937 – 1979) was an early disability rights activist and leader of disabled people's campaigns in the UK against residential institutions and for independent living. He was born on 9 March 1937 in Angmering, Sussex, with an impairment and he died aged 42 years in London, on 12 July 1979. His work and political influence is now cited in academic and political writings. Hunt disliked having his photograph taken and shunned publicity. It was only after his death that the impact of his writings, campaigning, leadership, and achievements began to be documented. Early life Paul Hunt had six sisters. His mother taught him to read, and he attended the local church primary school for girls, followed by a mixed junior school. When he was eleven years old he was moved to start living in institutions. The first of these was St Mary's residential School for Handicapped Children in Bexhill-on-Sea. In 1951, aged 14 years, he broke a leg outside the family church while at home from school on the summer holiday. His father improvised his first wheelchair and he continued living at home for a few months, but soon he was moved to stay full-time at the Queen Mary's Hospital in Carshalton where he took his 'O level' exams two years later. Aged 16 years and no longer classed as a child he was moved again, to an adult hospital in London. "Founded on Failure", BBC By the age of 18 years old Paul Hunt had been living in a "chronic" ward in St John's Hospital in Battersea, London, for two years, being left in bed most days - "amongst dying people, with no apparent future", and "He was surrounded by young lads dying ... and old men", wrote Judy Hunt (in archive papers, 2002, 2016).