Obituary: Graham Layton

GRAHAM LAYTON made an outstanding contribution to health care of the poor in Pakistan. After 30 successful years in the construction industry, he set up eight hospitals, providing free eye care to over four million patients, including 400,000 eye surgeries.

With his friend Zaka Rahmatulla, Layton invested pounds 50,000 and set up the Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust (LRBT) in 1985, opening the first mobile eye hospital at Tando Bado deep in the wilds of Sind Province the same year. A permanent, fully equipped brick-built structure at Korangi on the outskirts of Karachi followed in 1988 and the eight hospitals now in existence represent a multi-million- pound operation serving the needy in all parts of the country..

The trust's work has been supported financially, and endorsed from the start, by Sight Savers International, the leading British charity devoted to eye services in the developing world. Further financial assistance in the UK has come from the Graham Layton Trust, set up to help fund the work in Pakistan; it has recently arranged the finance for the eighth hospital, at Lar near Multan. Like its predecessors, this project was supervised by Graham Layton with typical enthusiasm and exacting attention to detail. It was completed four months ahead of schedule, just three weeks before his death.

Layton grew up in north London and was educated at Wellingborough School, in Northamptonshire. In 1940, he volunteered as a Sapper in No 692 (Costain) General Construction Company, Royal Engineers, and served in Belgium and France, before evacuation from Dunkirk on 28 May 1940 in the destroyer Vimy.

Commissioned into the Indian Army in 1942, he was promoted to Major in 1944 as Officer Commanding 536 Artisan Works Company, Royal Engineers. He was appointed MBE for the construction of the Eastern Army Boat Bridge crossing of the Barak River, during the campaign to recapture Burma. When a flash flood swept the bridge away, he showed his characteristic determination by staying on board with his team, splitting the bridge into sections, one of which was recovered 25 miles downstream: 17 days later the bridge was reopened.

Layton's company went on to build, from timber supplied by "Elephant Bill" Williams, 1,200 boats to carry supplies on the Chindwin in the operation to retake Rangoon: this time their leader was rewarded with appointment as OBE. He completed his army service with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

In 1947, Layton returned to Karachi, where over 30 years he built up MacDonald Layton Company to be one of the largest and most successful construction companies in Pakistan. Among his other achievements he built the parliament building in Islamabad and is credited with "the construction of the heart of the modern commercial Karachi".

He retired from active involvement with the business in 1977 and returned to England, where he developed a small house-building company in St Albans. But he could not rest there. In 1984 he returned to Karachi and took Pakistani citizenship. "This country has been good to me. This is where I made all my money, so why not give something back," he said.

Until the last week of his life, Layton had continued as the dynamic chief executive of LRBT, despite a debilitating stroke in 1989, which had left him confined to a wheelchair and with a severe impediment of speech. To the end he remained the hands-on manager, with an ability to motivate, and generate loyalty in, those around him. He was honoured for his tireless work in Pakistan with the Sitara-I-Quaid-Iazam (Star of Pakistan) in 1990, and also in the UK, where he was advanced CBE in the 1994 New Year's Honours.

Gordon Graham Layton, soldier, builder and philanthropist: born 18 May 1917; MBE 1945, OBE 1946, CBE 1994; died Karachi 7 March 1999.