William Kirk taught Work Study at South Bank Polytechnic from 1972, having previously worked for the Morgan Crucible Company and for Decca in work study. He died on 22nd September 1996, aged 85.
Sir Desmond Mpilo Tutu OMSG CH GCStJ is a South African Anglican cleric and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was the Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then the Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position.
In October 1994 he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by South Bank University.
Chief Emeka Anyaoku, GCVO, CFR, CON is a Nigerian diplomat of Igbo descent. He was the third Commonwealth Secretary-General. Aside from his international career, Chief Anyaoku continues to fulfill the duties of his office as Ichie Adazie of Obosi, a traditional Ndichie chieftainship.
In October 1994 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University.
Dame Kelly Holmes DBE is a retired British middle distance athlete. Holmes specialised in the 800 metres and 1500 metres events and won a gold medal for both distances at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. She set British records in numerous events and still holds the records over the 600, 800 and 1000 metre distances.
Dame Kelly Holmes was made an Honorary Fellow of the University in 2010.
South Bank Polytechnic staff
School of Legal, Political and Social Sciences, South Bank University
Sir Peter Mansfield was made an Honorary Doctor of Science of the University in 2005.
Nobel Laureate Professor Sir Peter Mansfield is an inventor who has changed the lives of millions, a scientist who has created revolutionary new pathways for physics, and a role model for people everywhere who want to achieve success from the most humble backgrounds.
Sir Peter's own background did not exactly prepare him for a distinguished scientific career, let alone winning the Nobel Prize, the highest accolade possible. He grew up in Lambeth and his father was a gas fitter, one of nine children. After the war broke out in 1939 when he was just six, he was evacuated twice and he spent some of his childhood in Torquay. When he returned to London, he did not succeed in getting into the local grammar school and was educated instead at a Central School in Peckham, which was later to become William Penn School. However, he left this school at 15 and started work as a printer's assistant. At this point in his life he was judged an academic failure and in particular was told by one of his teachers that science wasn't for him – an all too familiar story and in this case, spectacularly misjudged.
Even before this, as a young boy this fascination with science was sparked by his experiences when the V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets were falling on London – hence Lord Sainsbury's comment on the inspiration of bomb shrapnel of which the 11 year old Peter Mansfield amassed a considerable collection. This fascination became deep rooted and by the age of 19, he had taught himself enough about weapons and explosives to get a job as a scientific assistant in the Rocket Propulsion department, part of the Ministry of Supply, near Aylesbury. After National Service, he took up academic study again and did evening classes to get some A levels at what was then Borough Polytechnic and what is now today, of course, London South Bank University. Peter then won a bursary to study Physics at Queen Mary University as a mature student, a late career trajectory with which so many of our own students recognise. The mature student blossomed and Peter Mansfield graduated in 1959 with a 1st class Honours in Physics, which was followed by a PhD in 1962 under the supervision of Dr Jack Powles.
With his wife Jean, he spent two years as a Research Associate at the University of Illinois, before returning to the UK and a lectureship in Physics at the University of Nottingham, where he was appointed Professor in 1983 and has remained ever since albeit after formal retirement.
Peter Mansfield's work focused on the utilisation of gradients in the magnetic field. He showed how the signals could be mathematically analysed, which made it possible to develop a useful imaging technique. This was a major breakthrough not least because of the speed of the imaging. Within a decade of his developing his theory, the first medical applications were being developed. The commercial development of magnetic resonance imaging in the 1980s provided a breakthrough in medical diagnostics and research from which millions of patients around the world have benefited. There are now more than 22,000 MRI scanners in use worldwide, carrying out over 60 million examinations a year.
The use of MRI of course is expanding exponentially in line with health capacity demands and the increasing use of technology and even in this country, it is estimated that its use will increase by 60% over the next two years.
We, at London South Bank University, have a particular interest in these applications, since we hold a major contract to train diagnostic radiographers in the NHS while our researchers in Electrical Engineering are working with Peter Mansfield's colleagues at Nottingham in using superconductors.
Sir Peter Mansfield's career has been illuminated with honours and distinctions of the highest kind, including the Gold medal of the Royal Society, the Duddell Prize of the Institute of Physics, the Silvanus Thompson Medal by the British Institute of Radiology, the Antoine Beclere medal of the International Radiological Society, The Gold Medal of the European Congress of Radiology, and honorary degrees from universities including Strasbourg, Krakow, Kent and Nottingham. He was also knighted in 1993.
But his highest accolade came in 2003 when he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Professor Paul Lauterbur of the University of Illinois.
Accepting his award at the Nobelfest, Sir Peter expressed the feelings of many patients after their diagnosis, "What comes through to me is the strong sense of relief at knowing the details of their illness and the hope inspired by the vigorous evaluation of their problems using MRI."
For all his services to science and to medicine, for the transformation of the health of so many people, and for providing such a powerful role model for so many, Professor Sir Peter Mansfield was named as Doctor of Science honoris causa from London South Bank University.
Victor Adebowale was made an Honorary Fellow of the University in 2005.
Victor, Baron Adebowale has done ground-breaking work as both a campaigner and a leader for the homeless, the unemployed, the disadvantaged and those with learning disabilities. He is currently Chief Executive of one of the UK's leading social care organisations and prior to this, he held a number of posts at the helm of some of the most important UK organisations dealing with social care and exclusion. He is also one of the first People's Peers elected to a life peerage in 2001.
Victor points out that his role is "not to vote on things I know little or nothing about but on those matters I've got an interest in". Despite the 'modernisation' of the House of Lords, becoming a member still includes a lot of tradition and Victor admits to unwittingly breaking many of the rules, but he says "I don't have a problem with tradition. I do have a problem with bigotry, racism and poverty".
Born in 1962, in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, Victor Adebowale was educated at Thornes House School before going on to the University of East London.
Experiences from early in his life in Wakefield have helped to inform Victor's sensibility to social needs and exclusion. He has talked in the past with fondness of a family friend, 'Janet', who had a learning disability: "She went to a school up the road and she used to come round to the house everyday." That contact clearly influenced Victor's insight into people with learning disabilities leading an ordinary life.
Victor and Turning Point, where he is Chief Executive Officer, have been campaigning hard for the rights of people with learning disabilities with the publication in 2003 and 2004 of two hard-hitting reports, focusing on their exclusion. These reports have already had an impact at many levels of Government, but Victor believes that the work has only just begun and too often "people with learning disabilities are treated like second class citizens" and he equates the level of prejudice faced by those with learning disabilities, with the situation black people faced in sixties America.
Victor is known for his direct approach and quality of leadership. As he says, "Growing up in poor housing is why, early on, Lazlo's hierarchy became apparent to me – where complex systems depend on the simpler one and I valued the need for clothing, shelter and food". He has continued to exercise this theory – and he believes that if Turning Point can provide a service that works for the poorest and hard to reach, it will make access and implementation of those services easier for the rest of society. One winter, he used Admiralty Arch as a shelter and controversy ensued. "But", as he pointed out, "here was an empty building, it was cold and people needed shelter. We put the two together."
Victor began his career in Local Authority Estate Management before joining the housing association movement. He spent time with Patchwork Community Housing Association, then became the Regional Director of Ujima Housing Association, the largest Black-led housing association, followed by Director of the Alcohol Recovery Project. He was Chief Executive of the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint for five years, before taking up his current post at Turning Point which has more than 200 services nationwide.
To name but a few, Victor is Patron of Rich Mix Centre Celebrating Cultural Diversity, of Tomorrow's Project and of the National College for School Leadership. He was a member of the Social Exclusion Unit's Policy Action Team on Young People and Chair of the Review of Social Housing Co-ordination undertaken by the Institute of Public Policy Research. In 2000, Victor was awarded the CBE in the New Year's honour list for services to the New Deal, unemployment and homeless young people.
He was voted 'Britain's Most Admired Charity Chief Executive Officer 2004' in the Third Sector Awards, for his work at Turning Point, achieving more votes than heads of renowned international charities and national government organisations, which had also been short listed for the awards.
Victor has a great affection for London and the city has continued to inspire his work. He cites Sir Christopher's Wren's St Paul's Cathedral in his list of 'inspirational art and architecture'. He remembers seeing a picture of St Paul's rising up out of the smoke during the blitz. For him that photograph and the building itself are inspirational, reminding him of just how robust people and society are and that something important survives whatever the circumstances.
Victor's achievements in challenging the social exclusion faced by the homeless, unemployed and those with learning disabilities is an inspirational, and in particular to many of LSBU's students. Consequently, Victor, Lord Adebowale was awarded the honorary fellowship of London South Bank University.
Tyrone Goh was made an Honorary Doctor of Science of the University in 2005.
Julia Middleton was made an Honorary Fellow of the University in 2007.
Julia Middleton's Common Purpose brings together business leaders from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors and takes them outside their comfort zones and into their local communities. With an Economics degree from the London School of Economics she cut her professional teeth in employee relations at the Industrial Society.
Lord Morris was made Honorary Doctor of Letters of the University in 2007.
Bill Morris is one of Britain's best known and admired trade union leaders of modern times. After years in Trade Unions, Bill became Deputy General Secretary in 1986 and then General Secretary in 1991. He was awarded the Order of Jamaica in 2002, a knighthood in 2003 and was granted a Life Peerage in 2006. He was General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union from 1992 to 2003, and the first black leader of a major British trade union. Bill sat in the House of Lords, under the Labour Party whip, from 2006 to 2020.
The Metal Block, Tower Block, Extension Block and Joseph Lancaster Block at 103 Borough Road, Southwark were officially opened on 9 July 1969 by the Duke of Edinburgh. The buildings were designed by Norman & Dawbarn Architects who also designed the Polytechnic's Turney Road sports pavilion and the BBC Television Centre at Shepherds Bush.
This student accommodation was built in the early 1960s for the Phillippa Fawcett College of Education and was situated on Etherstone Road, in a residential area of Streatham. It comprised five blocks of accommodation with a total of 264 single study bedrooms, a boiler house, Caretaker's house and Principal's House. During the 1970s and 1980s it was owned and run by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) and housed students from various London Polytechnics. After ILEA was abolished in 1990 the building transferred to South Bank Polytechnic, a major user of the accommodation, on the understanding that one third of the accommodation would be used by students at the Polytechnic of Central London. The building was sold in 1997 as part of what was now South Bank University's strategy to have all accommodation within walking distance of the campus.
Red Cross Hall and Garden opened in 1887 in Southwark. They were both open to the public to be used by local residents.
The National College Wing, or Faraday Wing as it is now called, was built on a site originally covered by 33 tall narrow houses, a railway signal factory and at least two other workshop blocks. The building was designed by Norman & Dawbarn Architects an opened in 1960 to house the National College for Heating, Ventilating, Refrigeration and Fan Engineering. It was officially opened on 20th November 1961 by the Minister of Education, Sir David Eccles. The College had for many years been linked to the Borough Polytechnic and in 1970 merged with it to form the Polytechnic of the South Bank. The building included specialist laboratories, lecture theatre and a specialist library maintained until the 1980s. In 1991 the building was refurbished and renamed the Faraday Wing in honour of Michael Faraday who was born in Newington Butts.
The buildings at 113-119 Borough Road and 123-132 London Road were commonly known as the Terraces and were built c.1820. The University purchased the buildings along with the former Duke of Clarence pub at 132 London Road in 1997. These buildings were given Grade II listed status in 2000. In 2011 work began on redeveloping the Terraces and pub, with work being done by the Rivington Street Studio (Hawkins/Brown). The buildings reopened as the Clarence Centre for Enterprise and Innovation in Autumn 2013. Awards for the building include: Winner of the RICS 2015 Award for Regeneration, Civic Trust Commendation 2014, New London Awards 2014 Commendation, Highly Commended for the AJ Retrofit Awards 2014, Shortlisted for the RIBA Awards 2014.
The Centre provides office space to small business alongside retail space, event and exhibition space and meeting rooms. The Centre is also home to the University's Enterprise team.
The Victoria Gymnasium was used by male staff and students of the Borough Polytechnic Institute. It was opened in December 1898 and was funded in part by money raised from hiring out roof space to the public for viewing Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee procession which passed down Borough Road.
Battersea College of Education acquired Manresa House in Roehampton, in September 1962. It became the Battersea Training College for Primary Teachers, providing day courses for men and women, which began on 30th April 1963. Manresa House was closed in 1979 and primary education students were transferred to Rachel McMillan College.
The building was subsequently purchased by the University of Roehampton and re-named Parkstead House.