Sir Peter Large (16 October 1931 - 23 January 2005)^[1] was a British disability rights campaigner.

Large attended Enfield Grammar School from 1943 to 1950,^[2] before reading civil engineering at UCL, obtaining a BSc in 1953.^[1][3] He went on to national service in the Royal Navy, before joining Shell International as an engineer in 1956.^[1]

However, in 1962, Large contracted polio while working in Indonesia^[3] and spent three years in hospital.^[1] He was wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life.^[2][3] Despite this, by 1966 he was able to return to work as a civil servant at the Ministry of Technology, and later at the Department of Trade and Industry.^[1][3] Large became a senior scientific officer in February 1976, retiring in 1991.^[1]

While working as a civil servant, Large helped write parts of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970and the Social Security Benefits Bill 1974.^[3]

In 1968, Large was invited to join the Joint Committee on Mobility for the Disabled by the founding chairman, Denny Denly.^[2] Large became chairman in 1971, continuing until 1997, when he became president from 1997 to 2005.^[2] He was also chairman of the Association of Disabled Professionals from 1971 to 1993^[2][3] and on the executive committee of Radar from 1977 to 2001, serving as vice-chairman from 1995 to 1999.^[3]

From 1973 to 1993, Large was parliamentary advisor to the Disability Income Group and in 1977 he chaired the Silver Jubilee Access Committee, publishing a report titled "Can Disabled People Go Where You Go?".^[3][4] In 1978, he was appointed by minister for disabled people Alf Morris to lead an inquiry into disability discrimination in the UK.^[1]

In 1988, Large worked with Nicholas Scott, the then Minister for Social Security, to set up the Independent Living Fund, designed to give disabled people the funding necessary to live independently.^[3]

Large was made MBE in 1974, CBE in 1987 and knighted in 1993.^[2][5] He received the Harding Award in 1992 and a lifetime achievement award from Radar in December 2004.^[2]

Large married his first wife, Susy Barber^[a], in 1962.^[1][3][6] They had a son, George, and two daughters, Anne and Julia.^[1] Following Susy's death from kidney failure in 1982, Large married Sheenah McCaffrey in 1991, acquiring three stepchildren.^[1]

Large died at home in Warlingham, Surrey, in 2005, aged 73.^[1]