Robert Baird McClure

Robert Baird "Bob" McClure CC OOnt FRCS (Edin.) FICS (November 23, 1900 – November 10, 1991) was a Canadian physician, medical missionary to China, Taiwan, Gaza, India, and Borneo, and was also the 23rd Moderator of the United Church of Canada, the first unordained lay person to hold that position. During a very active life, McClure became friends with Soong Mei-ling and Chiang Kai-shek, crossed paths with Norman Bethune, was one of the first men to drive a vehicle along the Burma Road, parachuted into jungle valleys to save downed pilots, was threatened with imprisonment by Canadian prime minister William Lyon MacKenzie King, and was almost summarily executed as a spy by Japanese soldiers. He was finally forced to retire as a missionary doctor at age 67, but then spent his first two years of "retirement" as head of the United Church of Canada, and another nine years as a short-term missionary doctor around the world. During the 1960s and 1970s, the forthright and plain-spoken McClure was one of the most recognizable and most-quoted men in Canada.