A longtime political campaigner known for his visionary ideas died at his home in Giggleswick on Monday.

Robert Leakey was 98 and just three years ago stood in the 2010 general election, where he was one of the oldest candidates in Britain.

Mr Leakey also ran as an MP in 2005, representing his own Virtue Currency and Cognitive Appraisal Party.

But his son, Raymond, said his dad was possibly more famous for his caving exploits.

“He was one of the UK’s pioneering cavers and cave divers,” said Raymond. “He discovered the Mossdale Caverns near Grassington.”

Settle mayor Joe Lord, who is writing a book about Mr Leakey’s life, said his exploration of Mossdale Caverns in 1941, was a “courageous undertaking”.

Geoff Yeadon, himself a pioneer of cave diving, interviewed Mr Leakey in the 1980s about his legendary caving exploits between the 1930s and 1950s, including how he broke through the sump in Disappointment Pot on Ingleborough.

“It was an amazing thing - he stripped naked and went into the flooded tunnel and removed the blockage with his feet enabling the water level to drop. He was always at the sharp end and was involved in some heroic rescues, but never blew his own trumpet.”

Born in Kenya in June 1914, Mr Leakey was educated at a government school for boys in Nairobi until the age of 14. He then moved to England where he studied at Weymouth College and at the College of Aeronautical Engineering in London.

He worked as a “progress chaser” at Vickers Aviation in Southampton at a time when RJ Mitchell was designing the famous aircraft Spitfire there.

Called up to fight in the Second World War in 1942, Mr Leakey was posted to India and Burma, where he saw action on the front line. However, he had been a committed pacifist ever since.

Mr Leakey was also an environmental campaigner who was “well ahead of his time”.

His family said that his political beliefs and ideas, which were unaligned to any established political party, were often idiosyncratic, anti-establishment and centred on his concerns for the environment and opposition to war, capitalism and the military and financial “industries”.

One of his campaign manifestos included the elimination of money and the establishment of a virtue currency based on the “good works people do for others”.

Mr Lord, who was Mr Leakey’s campaign manager at the tender age of 17, added: “Bob Leakey was a truly remarkable man who lived a long and fascinating life. He can be described as many things; engineer, inventor, caver, explorer, visionary and political campaigner.

“Even in his late 90s he continued to campaign for what he believed in, and he wanted to make the world a better place for future generations.”

A funeral service will be held at St Alkelda’s Church, Giggleswick, on Wednesday at 2pm.

Mr Leakey is survived by his wife, Barbara, children Julian, Frances and Raymond, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Another daughter, Benita, died in 2010.