Robert Baird "Bob" McClure <small>OOnt</small> <small>FRCS (Edin.) FICS</small> (November 23, 1900 – November 10, 1991) was a Canadian physician, medical missionary to China, Taiwan, Gaza, India, and Borneo, and was also the 23rd Moderator of the United Church of Canada, the first unordained lay person to hold that position. During a very active life, McClure became friends with Soong Mei-ling and Chiang Kai-shek, crossed paths with Norman Bethune, was one of the first men to drive a vehicle along the Burma Road, parachuted into jungle valleys to save downed pilots, was threatened with imprisonment by Canadian prime minister William Lyon MacKenzie King, and was almost summarily executed as a spy by Japanese soldiers. He was finally forced to retire as a missionary doctor at age 67, but then spent his first two years of "retirement" as head of the United Church of Canada, and another nine years as a short-term missionary doctor around the world. During the 1960s and 1970s, the forthright and plain-spoken McClure was one of the most recognizable and most-quoted men in Canada.
Early life
Bob McClure's father, Dr. William McClure, was born in Lachute, Quebec, and earned a medical degree under William Osler at McGill University. William's wife, Margaret (nee Baird) McClure, was born in Pennsylvania. Together, the two became missionaries at a Presbyterian mission in Wuhan, China in 1888.
The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 forced the McClures and their two young daughters to evacuate to the port of Shanghai, although Margaret was three months pregnant. From Shanghai, they parted ways. William joined the medical unit of HMS Centurion under the command of Captain John Jellicoe, which was headed for Beijing as part of the Seymour Expedition. Despite his Canadian background, Gushue-Taylor acted very properly British, and discouraged social casualness of any kind. Gushue-Taylor had been in Taipei since 1911, and had learned the language well enough that he had co-authored a 1917 Taiwanese-language nursing manual, Lāi-goā-kho Khàn-hō͘-ha̍k. Gushue-Taylor was very critical of McClure's Canadian medical education — as McClure recalled, "he immediately told me what a terrible education I'd had in Canada. That ideally you couldn't get any good medical course in Canada. He was right in this respect, that the ordinary Canadian medical student had not spent the time on the basic stuff of anatomy. Simply, in anatomy we did not know our anatomy the way the English medical student knew his. We did not know our basic pathology. We did not know our medical pathology the way he did." So Gushue-Taylor took McClure back to school, insisting he read medical texts about the cases he was treating, questioning McClure afterwards, and casting doubt that McClure could ever hope to earn his FRCS degree from the prestigious Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
In addition to his medical work, McClure started to learn the Amoy dialect so he could speak directly with his patients, and he also learned some rudimentary Japanese for his dealings with local occupation authorities. McClure felt the need to be a missionary doctor again, and learned that the United Church of Canada's Board of Overseas Missions was in need of doctors in central India. McClure accepted a posting to Ratlam, but this time the rest of the family would stay in Toronto — the children were in high school, and Amy would also be able to watch over McClure's father, now in his late 80s, still mentally sharp but physically frail. During the program, McClure talked about the reason he sought missionary work: "One of the great motivations in missionary work is the spirit of adventure. I would define adventure as being risk with a purpose, as distinct from simply risk of weaving at high speed through crowded traffic. That sort of risk with purpose gives you adventure and a good feeling, a thrill... and a very good feeling when it is all over." Some of the items that quickly made headlines included McClure's support for legalized abortion, acceptance of American draft dodgers, sex education, family planning and contraception, worship services on days other than Sunday, shorter (or no) sermons during church services, and accepting credit cards for offerings.
- On 7 December 1978, with Bob and Amy McClure in the visitors' gallery, the Ontario Legislature moved to Private Members' Public Business. The first resolution, by Robert Nixon resolved "That this House recognizes the outstanding achievements of Dr. Robert McClure whose life of service at home, in China and elsewhere in the world exemplifies the most commendable aspects of the human spirit." For the next 75 minutes, members from all parties spoke at length about McClure's accomplishments. At the end of that time, Nixon's resolution was passed unanimously.