Page 22, 30th April 1938
MR T. E. LESCHER, O.B.E.
Mr. Thomas Edward Lescher, 0.B.E., of Birkdale, managing director of Evans Sons, Lescher and Webb, wholesale druggists of Liverpool, died on April 24th, after a fall, probably caused by a seizure, while skating at an ice-rink in Liverpool on the previous evening.
The elder son of the late Frank Harwood Lescher, his mother was Mary O’Conor Graham, daughter of Patrick Grehan, J.P., of Mount Plunket, Co. Roscommon. He was born on June 12th, 1877, and was educated at Stonyhurst, becoming the thirty-eighth President of the Stonyhurst Association in 1917, and later acting as Chairman of the Stonyhurst War Memorial Council. During the War he was responsible, under the National Health Insurance Commission, for the supply and control of drugs and chemicals needed by the public, and in 1920 his services were recognized by the grant of the O.B.E. From 1933 to 1935 he was Vice-Chairman of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, and for the two following years he was Chairman. He was also a Freeman of the City of London.
In matters concerned with the Church he gave unsparingly of his time and abilities, and at various times he was Chairman, and later Vice-President, of the Westminster Catholic Federation, Chairman of the Catholic Confederation of England and Wales, President of the London Circle of the Catenian Association, Vice-President of the Catholic Reading Guild, Vice-President of the Liverpool Archdiocesan Branch of the Board of Catholic Action, and Chairman of the Liverpool Branch of the Catholic Truth Society. In addition to his notable abilities and unbounded energy, he had a capacity for enthusiasm which enabled him to throw himself with gusto into whatsoever he undertook, into games as well as into his business activities, and his work for the Church. At skating, in which pursuit he lost his life, he was particularly proficient, holding the Gold Medal of the National Skating Association, and being a member of the council of that body.
Mr. Lescher married on October 21st, 1903, Ella Mary, daughter of Louis Marino Casella, of Hampstead, who survives him with ten children. His third son, the Rev. Sydney George Harwood Lescher, was recently ordained in Rome.
