John Parry obituary

My father, John Parry, who has died aged 92, was a missionary doctor who established Mbereshi hospital in what was then rural Northern Rhodesia, and guided it through that country’s transition from colonial protectorate to the independent nation of Zambia.

He was born in Oldham, Lancashire, one of three children of Reginald Parry, a Congregational minister, and Mary (nee Barrie). He attended Queen Elizabeth’s grammar school in Blackburn, then Hackney Downs secondary school in north London. His father instilled in him the values of his church and the London Missionary Society (LMS), such as racial equality and social justice. The explorer David Livingstone had been an LMS missionary, and John felt the call to follow in his footsteps. Studying medicine at Manchester and theology at Lancashire College, he qualified as both a doctor and a church minister. Along the way he married Freda Carter, a registered nurse, also from Lancashire.