Rt. Rev Dr Tom Butler was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters of the University in 2005. He was the ninth Anglican Bishop of Southwark from 1998-2010.
Professor Nathu Puri was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science of the University in 2007.
Professor Nathu Puri is a successful industrialist and entrepreneur, renowned philanthropist and devoted supporter of education. He is one of the most powerful Asian businessmen in Britain and an alumnus of the national College of Heating, Ventilating, Refrigeration and Fan Engineering, which makes him an alumnus of London South Bank University and thus a great role model for our students.
Born in Chandigarh in the Punjab, Nat's family had fallen on hard times. Most observer agree that the seeds of Nat's later ambition and success were probably planted young, watching the collapse of his father's banking business after partition in India in 1947. As a Hindu in a predominantly Muslim area, his father lost most of his money as many of his clients either fled to Pakistan or were the victims of communal violence.
"There were no debtors left, only creditors", Nat Puri recalled.
Eventually, after years of struggle, he himself left India at the age of 27 with a degree in pure maths and little money in his pocket. And it was to the National College that he came and studied and, he now says, profited from the excellent teaching there. After leaving the College, he joined the long-established Nottingham firm F G Skerritt where he worked as an engineer. As the story goes, in 1975 his life took a major turn. He had made a proposal for some new business in the Middle East and when the company declined he walked out with a month's salary. Turning round a property deal, he set up a consultancy which flourished. Eight years later he had bought out his former employer.
And from then on, the story is well known as Melton Meedes, his holding company, now part of the bigger Purico Group of Companies, set out on the acquisition trail. With a small staff in Nottingham, which has become his adopted home, the company gradually became an empire.
With extraordinary single-mindedness, he showed no qualms about the size of any potential new business. He is said to have bid for the likes of Rover and the former British Shipbuilders' yard in Sunderland, despite having no experience of either the car or shipping industry. He didn't get these particular companies, but his capacity to surprise is famous. His interest are extraordinarily diverse and global – from car badges like Mercedes, to waste products, from textiles to cigarette papers and from engineering and construction, including steel fabrication and air-conditioning units, to printing – a subsidiary company printed Variety and Billboard in the United States. Questioned about the logic of such a wide range of activities, his answer is simple – business is business.
But he has also sought to use his wealth and influence in pursuit of those things he values, chiefly education. In 1988 he set up the Puri Foundation, a charitable trust, with an initial donation of 1 million [pounds], The foundation invests in projects close to his heart, particularly involving technology and education. He strongly supports schools and the education of young people. Most recently, together with Toyota, the Puri Foundation has created an Engineering Centre at Top Valley School in Nottingham, providing training and education to young apprentices in the county. He has also made generous donations to Nottingham University, where he has been awarded the title of Special Professor in the Business School. He has also set up a Scholarship fund at this university, in commemoration of the role the National College played in his own development.
He has also been generous to political parties; although he is a well-known benefactor of the Labour Party, he has also supported Ken Clarke for the Conservative leadership, and it has even been suggested that he is watching the Liberal context with interest. This, of course, says much for his even-handedness and his adroitness. And indeed his significance for all political parties.
His dedication to India remains enormous. In 1999 he and Gulam Noon presented the President of India with a collection they had bought at auction in Sotheby's of hitherto unpublished letters from Gandhi to Maulana Abdul Bari, an Islamic scholar, leader of the Khilafat Movement (1920-22) and founder of the Jamiat-e-Ulema. This was at a time when the President Narayanan was endeavouring to encourage inter-religious understanding and in the letters Ghandi makes a passionate plea for communal friendship, something with which Nat Puri clearly identifies from his own personal experience.
Recently is has been said that his support for Indian charity is unsurpassed. He gave a million pounds to the Gujarat Earthquake appeal in 200. And he is genuinely concerned about tribal illiteracy in India, particularly the 150 million adivasi tribal people living in remote regions in India without health care and literacy. He has embarked on a project to bring education and medical care to these people and he is currently developing a higher education institution in northern India.
But cricket, especially Indian cricket, is also a great passion. Indeed he is said to have two boxes in Trent Bridge and the Indian Express, faced with a sudden dearth of tickets for the Test Matches, suggested that it was time to be even nicer to Nat than usual.
In his book the magic of Indian cricket, Mihir Bose recalls a dinner hosted in 2004 by Nat Puri in honour of the Indian team. Nat had promised £50,000 for the first Indian to get a triple century in a Test match and as the keen followers of the game here will recall, Veeru Sehwag, the unconventional batsman, became the first – with 309 against Pakistan in Multan and of course helping India to its highest ever 675 for five against Pakistan.
Sir Terence was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Sciences of the University in 2007.
Sir Terence Conran CH RDI FCSD was an English designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer. Conran's first professional work came when he worked in the Festival of Britain (1951) on the main South Bank site. He left college to take up a job with Dennis Lennon's architectural company, which had been commissioned to make a 1/4-scale interior of a Princess Flying Boat. Conran started his own design practice in 1956 with the Summa furniture range and designing a shop for Mary Quant.
In 1964, he opened the first Habitat shop in Chelsea, London with his then wife Caroline Herbert, focusing on housewares and furniture in contemporary designs. Habitat grew into a large chain, the first retailer to bring such designs to a mass audience. Conran had a major role in the regeneration in the early 1990s of the Shad Thames area of London next to Tower Bridge that includes the Design Museum, which he founded in 1989.
Minister of Education (1954-1957 and 1959-1962) and Minister for the Arts (1970-1973).
The College was founded in 1966 from the amalgamation of other educational institutions, including a branch institute of Battersea Polytechnic established in Tooting during 1901. The College specialised in degrees and diplomas in Accountancy, Business and Management Studies. In 1967 a Higher National Certificate and the first full time course, specifically designed for the resettlement of members of the armed services, was introduced in collaboration with the Ministry of Defence. The growth of the College saw work spread to a number of annexes, including a Congregational church in Rookstone Road, Wandsworth, a floor of Smallwood Road School, Garrett Lane, and a further school at 10 Wiseton Road. In 1979 the former site of Battersea Grammar School was secured near Tooting Broadway. The College was designated a Higher Education Centre under the Education Reform Act 1988 and by 1991 offered a range of sub-degree level work and good quality post experience courses in Management. With ongoing accommodation problems and a damning report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate on some of its provision the College's Board of Governors chose in 1990 to amalgamate with Thames Polytechnic. However in November the Secretary of State announced his intention to dissolve the College under the 1988 Education Reform Act and allowing higher education students to choose where they wished to complete their studies. Over 1000 students chose to transfer to South Bank Polytechnic and most of the College's staff followed suit, helping to form the Faculty of Management and Policy Studies. The extra staff were housed in Diary House on Borough Road.
The London County Council School of Building was opened on 26th February 1904 with Mr H W Richards as Principal to provide a specialist training college for the large number of building workers in Camberwell and Lambeth. The Lambeth Polytechnic building in Ferndale Road, Brixton was renovated to contain workshops for painting and decorating, carpentry and joinery and a drawing office. When it first opened, 643 students enrolled on classes covering stone carving, plasterers' modelling, drawing, chemistry and physics of building materials, land surveying and levelling. The School soon gained a world-wide reputation as a centre of excellence in the fields of town planning, building technology, estate management and building architecture.
In 1906 a school of architecture was added which was organised by Professor Beresford Pite of the Royal Academy of Art. Demand for courses increased rapidly so that in 1908 the School added a Junior Day Technical College for Boys and then a Senior Day Technical School as well as a new extension in 1909. In 1910 five-year courses were introduced in all trade subjects, followed in 1911 by a four year course in reinforced concrete and in 1912 a course in structural engineering all examined by the City and Guilds of London Institute. In 1921 Mr A R Sage became Principal (the Sage Medallion was in the possession of the former Vauxhall College). In 1922, Sir Robert Blair (LCC Education Officer) wrote, 'the Brixton School is easily the first and most complete school of building in the world'. In 1927 until 1943 Mr F E Drury became Principal. The Board of Education classified the School as a College of Further Education in 1928 and the following year a three year day course was introduced leading to the Ordinary and Higher National Diploma in Building or the Intermediate Examination of the Royal Institute of British Architects or the Chartered Surveyors Institute.
In 1943 it became the Brixton School of Building, in March 1945 Mr D A G Reid CBE became Principal and after the Second World War the School rapidly expanded so that by 1949 the number of full time students exceeded 400, studying courses in architecture, surveying and structural engineering. In 1956 Brixton was designated a regional college, and the governors decided not to concentrate on work at higher levels, but to retain its craft work and lower level teaching. Under the government's policy for higher education, given in the White Paper 'A Plan for Polytechnics and Other Colleges', published in 1966, the higher level studies at Brixton would have to be continued within a new institution based on the polytechnic model. Brixton School of Building became part of the Polytechnic of the South Bank in 1970, along with the Borough Polytechnic, City of Westminster College and the National College for Heating, Ventilating, Refrigeration and Fan Engineering. The last Principal wrote, '1970 marked the end of the beginning; the School of Building had faithfully served many days and generations of students but to the work it was doing there is no end'.
Five of the six departments from Brixton became the new Polytechnic's Faculty of Construction, Technology and Design. The sixth department, along with some work from other departments formed the Vauxhall College of Further Education. The Faculty moved into the new purpose-designed Wandsworth Road building, on the Wandsworth Road, during the summer of 1973, a decade after the first draft schedule of accommodation was made. The building was officially opened on 17 April 1975 by Anthony Crosland MP. The Faculty became the largest and most comprehensive Built Environment faculty in Europe covering subjects such as Property Development, Waste Management and Architecture. In the summer of 2003 the Wandsworth Road building was sold by London South Bank University and students and staff transferred back to the University's main Southwark campus to form the Faculty of Engineering, Science and the Built Environment.
From Lost Hospitals of London https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/wanstead.html The Essex County Hospital opened in 1938 in a building originally erected in 1861 as the Merchant Seamen's Orphan Asylum. (Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, had laid the foundation stone.) In 1921 the orphans moved to Bearwood House in Wokingham and the Asylum building was bought by the Convent of the Good Shepherd as a refuge for women and girls. In 1937 Essex County Council bought the building and converted it into a hospital. The Hospital joined the NHS in 1948 as a general hospital with 202 beds. It had suffered considerable damage during the war and a proposal was made to develop a larger hospital on the 7 acre site. However, these plans came to naught. The war damage was repaired and by 1961 the Hospital had 195 beds. The maternity service was withdrawn in 1975 and the Hospital finally closed in 1986 with 188 beds. Services were transferred to Whipps Cross Hospital.
The hospital was part of the Forest Group School of Nursing, centred on Whipps Cross Hospital, training nurses for both the Register and the Roll.
From Lost Hospitals of London: https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/connaught.html In the late 19th century Walthamstow residents Mr and Mrs Tudor opened a 'Cottage for Sick Children' in a private house in Brandon Road. The Hospital moved to larger premises in Salisbury Road in 1880 and became known as the Leyton, Walthamstow and Wanstead Hospital. In 1894 the gift of Holmcroft in Orford Road enabled the hospital to expand so that it could also provide general services, and it was duly renamed the Children's and General Hospital for Leyton, Leytonstone, Walthamstow and Wanstead. It was enlarged in 1897 and again in 1903. By 1925 it had 50 beds. The Leyton and Leytonstone War Memorial Ward was added in 1927. In 1928 it was renamed the Co aught Hospital, as the Duchess of Co aught had been patron since 1866. The Duke of Kent had helped to raise £17,000 for its ru ing costs. By this time it had 100 beds. Comely Bank in Orford Road was acquired as a clinic in 1930. In 1934 the Hospital was enlarged again and by 1939 had 118 beds. Although mooted in 1945, the prospect of building a larger hospital never materialized and, in 1959, the old Walthamstow Town Hall, built in 1866, was incorporated into the Hospital and became its main entrance. This expanded it to 128 beds. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS under the control of the Forest Group Hospital Management Committee, part of the North East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. In 1974, following a major reorganisation of the NHS, it came under the auspices of the Enfield District Health Authority, part of the North East Thames Regional Health Board. The Hospital finally closed in 1977 due to financial cutbacks in the NHS.
King George Hospital, Ilford, Essex, started in 1912 as the Ilford Emergency Hospital to serve the Ilford, Barking and Dagenham areas with 20 beds. During WW1 it became an approved military hospital with 56 beds.
Claybury Hospital opened in 1893 as the London County Lunatic Asylum, Ilford. At the end of the 20th Century with the Care in the Community Programme and decline in patient numbers from its peak of 4,000 patients, Claybury closed in 1997 and the historic buildings converted into luxury flats.