The garden of a new £5m cancer centre is to be dedicated to a “true Liverpool gentleman” who died earlier this year. Barry Owen was the co-founder of city-based property consultancy firm Mason Owen, which he established with Geoff Mason in 1967.
He died at the age of 82 in April. Ahead of construction beginning on the latest Maggie’s Cancer Centre on the site of the old Royal Liverpool University Hospital next year, it has been confirmed that the garden in the grounds of the new facility will be named in Mr Owen’s honour.
Mr Owen’s wife, Susanne said, “This will be a very special place that I’m sure people will treasure.” The new Maggie’s will be the 29th and the third funded by the Steve Morgan Foundation.
Barry Owen was born in Stockport on 29 April 1942, to parents who were both from Liverpool. The family returned to the city after WWII and Mr Owen attended Birkenhead School during the 1950s, before studying economics and economic history at the University of Liverpool.
He was awarded an OBE in 2009 for services to business and charity in Liverpool and was also a fellow of Liverpool John Moores University. Mr Owen took great solace from the garden at his family home near Chester in the latter stages of his own cancer journey.
Work on the new Maggie’s centre, to be built at the junction of Prescot Street and Daulby Street in Liverpool, is set to begin in March next year. Planning permission for the £5m centre was granted by the city council in September.
Mrs Owen said, “Barry took such great comfort from walking in our garden and sitting amidst the plants and flowers. He would be so pleased to think that others coping with the impact of cancer could do likewise, particularly in the city he loved so much.”
The new Maggie’s will be the 29th and the third funded by the Steve Morgan Foundation, with others on Wirral and in north Wales to have benefitted from the Redrow founder’s personal charity. Mr Morgan said, “The ethos of our foundation is to ‘give money away well’, and I’m sure many will want to follow that principle, too, as they acknowledge Barry’s great contribution to civic and business life.
“Every penny will go towards helping people in the Liverpool area with their cancer journey – a tough road to travel.” An appeal to help fund the support services and therapy activities that will be delivered in the garden to people with cancer, as well as their families has been backed by a number of founding donors, including Iceland Foods Charitable Foundation, the Boodles Charitable Trust, Mason Owen, Jim Clarke and Andy and Patricia Pritchard.
A JustGiving crowdfunding page has been launched to allow everyone who knew Mr Owen to have the opportunity to back the project and leave a message.
Jim Davies, one of Mr Owen’s closest friends and co-founder of international law firm DWF, said. “It was standing room only in the Anglican Cathedral and that says it all for me. Barry gave so much to his home city, and with the help of his many friends and colleagues, this garden and the care and services offered in it will be his last great gift.
“He was a remarkably generous man, and now he’s asking us to help others.”
Image: Barry Owen
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