LONDON - Chad Varah, founder of the Samaritans offering the world's first telephone hotline for those considering suicide, has died peacefully at the age of 95, his family said on Thursday.

Varah, a British Anglican priest, founded the charity in 1953 that became a model for organisations around the world providing counselling for those driven to despair.

Samaritans now offers 24-hour support from thousands of trained volunteers in Britain and Ireland by phone, email or face-to-face at around 200 branches. It received 5 million contacts last year.

Varah founded the Samaritans having been inspired by a 14-year-old girl who killed herself when she began menstruating because she believed she had venereal disease.

He had conducted her funeral as a young vicar and at the time it was illegal to take one's own life and sex education was limited.

When he became rector at St Stephen Walbrook Church in London in 1953 he advertised for people to help and was inundated with offers of support.

He opened a drop-in centre where emotionally isolated and distressed people could find a sympathetic ear, and the Samaritans was born.