Remembering a defiant finance and charity pioneer

Monday 22 February 2021

A finance leader and aviation aficionado, who escaped a doomed flight in the 70s, has passed away after a two-decade battle with the disease for which he helped raise awareness and millions of pounds.

Ted Clucas, who died aged 79 on Wednesday 3 February, became a well-known figure in the business community after moving to Jersey in the early 70s, and founding one the island’s largest trust companies.

For his last two decades, however, he will be best remembered for his tenacious fight against prostate cancer - one that was not only personal, but also to generate greater awareness, support and research funding into the disease.

Mr Clucas was born in Oldham in 1941 and went to Wrekin College in Shropshire before reading for an MA in psychology at Trinity College, Dublin.

After serving for a short time as an officer in the RAF, he moved back to Dublin permanently in 1968, where he began his business career. However, with the Troubles intensifying across Ireland, he moved with his wife, Jill, and their young son, John, to Jersey in 1972.

Pictured: Mr Clucas graduating from Trinity College Dublin.

He soon started investment consultancy firm Centre Management, leaving the company in 1986 to found Herald Trust Group, which he would build into a large and successful business, before selling it in 2008. 

In his first decade in Jersey, Mr Clucas was also Treasurer of the Jersey Aero Club for three years and was instrumental in building the club to be a very popular social and active flying establishment, with many people launching their flying career from it.

He also enjoyed piloting his single-engine Cessna 182.

Pictured: Mr Clucas was Treasurer of the Aero Club for three years.

Due to collect that aircraft from Belgium in 1972, he was scheduled to fly with BEA from Heathrow to Brussels, but his own aircraft wasn’t quite ready to be collected so he cancelled the booking at the eleventh hour.  

That original flight, BEA Flight 548, crashed shortly after take-off, killing everyone on board, with Mr Clucas understandably long remembering his very lucky escape.

Reflecting Herald Trust’s standing, Mr Clucas became President of the Jersey Association of Trust Companies (JATCo) in the early 90s at a key time for the sector, when the island was preparing to introduce independent regulation and a ground-breaking financial services law, which became statute in 1998.

Pictured: A strong advocate of regulation, Mr Clucas was President of JATCo at a key time for the finance industry.

Mr Clucas, who was a strong advocate of regulation, was a respected voice as the island prepared to bring its primary industry into the 21st century.

His tenure at JATCo was also marked by networking and celebration. The association’s dinners became high points of the business calendar, with well-known comedians often flying in to share their not-always-politically-correct musings and jokes. 

These events in many ways reflected Mr Clucas’s own personality: being a key player behind the scenes, but always happy to let others enjoy the limelight.

He did, however, become more of a public figure at that time due to his strong belief that a world-class finance centre should have a globally recognised hotel, preferably operated by an international operator, and with high-end facilities for the business community.

Mr Clucas became Chairman of a company that led a consortium which successfully developed the hotel on the Waterfront. However, it took a decade of negotiation before the 195-bedroom Radisson finally opened its doors in 2007.

Pictured: The Radisson, which opened its doors in 2007.

So altered was his original vision by the planning process that Mr Clucas felt bruised and frustrated by the encounter. Although proud that Jersey finally had an international business hotel, he felt that many opportunities had been lost because of the constraints set by the authorities.

When the hotel won the ‘Carbuncle Cup’ in 2008 - a prize for the ugliest building of the year, voted for by readers of architecture website Building Design - Mr Clucas laid the blame squarely at Planning.

Despite this, the hotel not only quickly became a key provider of beds for leisure and business visitors but also an important venue space. Mr Clucas always enjoyed property development and invested in a number of ventures in both Jersey and the UK. His daughter, Sarah, now leads the family interests in the property and hotel business.

Pictured: Mr Clucas with his daughter, Sarah.

In 1998, Mr Clucas’s priorities fundamentally shifted when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer - the symptoms of which had been misdiagnosed for two years. At the time, he was astounded to learn that the UK’s government of the day dedicated just £47,000 of funding a year to one of the most common cancers affecting men.

Not long afterwards, he ran a half-marathon in the UK, raising the same amount of money that the UK spent annually, shaming them into doing something about it. 

He became a trustee of the Prostate Research Campaign UK, and was instrumental in its 2012 merger with The Prostate Cancer Charity to become Prostate Cancer UK, which last year raised more than £37 million alone. These funds go into ground-breaking research, campaigns and support for sufferers of the disease and providing other charities with desperately-needed resources.

Pictured: Relaxing with Brown, John's border terrier, who adored Mr Clucas.

Prostate Cancer UK works in tandem with The Urology Foundation - another charity that was supported by Mr Clucas, and the only one in the British Isles tackling all urology diseases, affecting both men and women.

For 24 years, Mr Clucas defied the medical experts and continued his charity work. He was determined to do all that he could to beat the cancer, which had spread throughout his body, and was always stoical, pragmatic and matter-of-fact.

When, in 2019, he was told by his doctor in London that metastatic cancer had been found on his brain, together they calmly charted a treatment path, which involved an immediate non-invasive operation to excise a portion of the tumour. 30 minutes after that surgery, he was eating pizza with his son at Ronny Scott’s, a feat never imagined 20 years ago. 

Pictured: Mr Clucas with his beloved grandson, Alfred.

He also travelled extensively to attend conferences on prostate cancer, to network, build up his knowledge and to raise money for research, working in tandem with his surgeon, Professor Roger Kirby, who is now President of the Royal Society of Medicine in the UK. 

Described as stubborn, stoical and disciplined by those closest to him, Mr Clucas was a man of dry wit and sharp intellect, but reserved and sometimes misunderstood by virtue of his strong Yorkshire roots. Above all, he was a man who liked to just 'get on with it’ with a minimum of fuss.

Mr Clucas was married to Jill and was a much-loved father of John, and Sarah, and a proud grandfather to Alfred. To them, Bailiwick Express extends its sympathy.

Mr Clucas’s family has asked that if anyone would like to make a donation in his memory, they would appreciate it going to The Urology Foundation.