Robin Cavendish

Robin Francis Cavendish, MBE (12 March 1930 – 8 August 1994), was a British advocate for people with disability, medical aid developer, and one of the longest-lived responauts in Britain. Born in Middleton, Derbyshire, Cavendish was affected by polio at the age of 28. Despite being initially given only three months to live, Cavendish, paralyzed from the neck down and able to breathe only with the use of a mechanical ventilator, became a tireless advocate for disabled people, instrumental in organising the first records of the number of responauts in Britain and helping to develop numerous devices to provide independence to paralyzed people. Early life and career Robin Francis Cavendish was born 12 March 1930 in Middleton, Derbyshire, England. He attended Winchester College. He attended Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the 60th Rifles, of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, spending seven years in the Army, eventually attaining the rank of captain. He left the Army to join Thompson Smithett in starting up a tea-broking business in Kenya. In 1957, he married Diana Blacker and returned to Kenya. They had one son, Jonathan Cavendish. Polio diagnosis and subsequent career In December 1958, while in Kenya, Cavendish became ill with polio. Because he was paralyzed from the neck down, a Nairobi doctor put him on a mechanical respirator that Cavendish needed to breathe, making him a "responaut". Cavendish flew back to England. He was initially given only three months, and then one year, to live. Against the advice of his doctors, he left the hospital after a year. For the remainder of his life, Cavendish and his wife worked not only to improve the quality of his life, but the lives of other paralyzed people, travelling the world to inspire others as campaigners for disabled people. Cavendish would often serve as the expert who explained his condition to consultants and nurses. In the 1960s he tracked down and listed the circumstances of all the responauts in Britain, compiling the first record of how many people were confined to iron lungs. His findings were bleak, so he launched a campaign petitioning the health department to provide wheelchairs like his to free people with polio from iron lungs. Over the years, he volunteered himself as a test subject for the development of voice- and breath-activated equipment.