Stephen Leach

On May 23, 2025 Dr. Stephen Leach passed away peacefully at home surrounded by family and friends, from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Stephen leaves behind his wife Denise; his two sons, Edward Leach and Dr. William Leach, and their partners, Sereen and Anna; and his three step-children Nicole, Alex and Nathaniel. He also leaves behind his sister-in-law Josephine Thompson, his niece Naomi Thompson, his grandnephew Ruben Samuel Thompson-Carr, his nieces Bernadette, Maggie, Bridget, Anne Marie and Roger Leach and their families in Manchester, England. He was predeceased by his sister, Bernadette and his former wife Penelope Thompson Leach.

The family offers special thanks to Doris Wisniewski, Helen Forbes, and Paul Coogan for their dedicated care and friendship for Stephen over many years, and to Matt Lawuers who came with much needed full-time support for him at the end.

Stephen was born in Manchester, England on June 17,1944, and remembered playing in the rubble left after the bombings in World War II. He lived with his family in Egypt, Austria and Germany after the war, returning to England when he was older, where he attended Stonyhearst, a Jesuit boarding school. He went on to receive a medical degree from St. Bartholemew’s College (“Barts”) a prestigious medical school at the University of London. He moved to Mansfield Connecticut in the early 1980’s with his wife and young child Edward and joined the Windham Medical Group, where he practiced internal medicine for the next 35 years. During that time, he and his partners Dr. Edward Sawicki and Dr. Michael Kilgannon formed the Med-East Clinic, where he practiced after retirement in 2018.

He remained to the end a British gentleman and committed physician who treated thousands of patients for over 35 years. With his quirky British wit, piercing blue eyes, and rigorous medical education, he brought a brand of health care to eastern Connecticut that is rarely seen today. As the practice of medicine changed, he remained dedicated to personal attention to each patient. To his last days, people would stop him everywhere to thank him for caring for their loved ones. Among many professional accomplishments, he helped establish Hospice care in eastern Connecticut. He was the beneficiary of that wonderful service at the end.

Besides his family and medicine, his lifelong passion was rugby football, which he played with zeal at Stonyhearst and later at Bart’s. He used to joke that the reason he got into Bart’s was that in the interview he let them know that he played just the position they needed for the Bart’s team. He considered his much-broken nose a badge of honor, along with his England jersey, festooned with the red rose of the English team.

He was the legendary coach of the UConn Rugby team in the 1980’s, which consisted of a sundry mix of young men, most of whom didn’t even know what rugby was before joining the club sport. They went on to win several regional and even a national championship placement under his tutelage. They still come around the house to see “coach”.

In the early 2000’s, he met and married Denise Wright Merrill, then State Representative from Mansfield. He was her steadfast companion during her many campaigns for office, and always loved being “Mr. Madame Secretary” when she became Secretary of the State in 2010.

There will be a private burial and service later this month. Please leave remembrances in the memory book online at: www.potterfuneralhome.com . Please also consider a donation in his name to the UConn Movement for Life Lab for the study of Parkinson’s Disease. Checks for the fund to be set up in his memory should be sent to:
https://giving.UConn.edu/campaigns/60852/donations/new Type in “Life Movement” for the fund.