Showing 360 results

Dean of Faculty of Built Environment, 1973 and previously Head of Estate Management department.

Dean of Quality Initiatives and Executive Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor, 1992.

Lawrence Hadley was born in London in 1925, and evacuated to Minehead at the outbreak of the Second World War. On his return to London he became an apprentice with a mechanical engineering contractor in central London. During his apprenticeship he studied at the Borough Polytechnic between 1941 and 1946, including the heating and ventilating engineering intensive course in 1944. These courses became the foundation of the National College of Heating, Ventilating, Refrigeration and Fan Engineering when it opened in 1948.
He wrote 60 years later: “I recall my main tutors then being Mr Harwood and Mr Cowan, who managed to keep our attention in spite of the regular flying bombs overhead. I don’t recall the class ever retreating to the shelters – just a quick duck under the desk.”

After completing his apprenticeship he joined Donald Smith and Partners, Consulting Engineers, the forerunner of DSSR. In a letter dated July 1946, confirming his appointment as a draughtsman, Donald Smith himself wrote: “We trust you will find your work for us congenial and can assure you that you will have ample opportunities for enlarging your experience”.

Laurie Hadley’s relationship with DSSR lasted 41 years. He was a partner for 30, and senior partner for six. He rapidly involved himself with a number of committees, sub-committees and working parties for professional institutes and learned bodies. He became a council member of the Association of Consulting Engineers, a member of the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management in 1972, and later a Fellow, and became involved with a number of other engineering institutions, including the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers.

He became a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Plumbers in 1976 and was the livery company’s senior steward from 2002. In 1977 he was chairman of the National Joint Consultative Committee for Building, and in 1978 president of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. He was elected president of IHEEM for the years 1983-1985 and to the same role at the International Federation of Hospital Engineering for the years 1998-2000.
In 1986 he was awarded the OBE for services to hospital engineering, and even after retirement he continued to support professional engineers - finally stepping down from the IHEEM Journal Committee in December 2006 and the Institute’s International Committee in January 2007. He died in 2008.

Dr Nobuhiro Iijima, an alumnus of the National Bakery School, was made an Honorary Doctor of Science in 1992. Mr. Iijima is president and CEO of Yamazaki Baking Co., Japan's leading manufacturer of bread and baked goods.

Edward Greatrex was a clock and watch maker who worked at English Market near Dale End in Birmingham from about 1724 to about 1755. He was the son of John, a yeoman of Aston in Derbyshire, and was apprenticed in Birmingham to Peter Brown, clockmaker on 24 June 1713 for 6 years and the fee of £8. Later Edward took his own apprentice, John Walker, in 1732.

In 1722 Edward married, in his home town of Ashbourne and the following year a daughter was born. No children are recorded . Edward is known to have maintained the Welsh Cross clock, once situated in the heart of Birmingham.

Staff member, Faculty of Education, Human & Social Studies, Polytechnic of the South Bank.

Professor Miriam David has a BA (Hons), Sociology from the University of Leeds 1966;, and a PhD from the University of London 1975.

Miles Peter Richmond attended art classes at the Borough Polytechnic Institute following the Second World War and was taught by David Bomberg. He was a founder member of the Borough Group of artists. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the University in 2000.

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.

Gary Younge was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters of the University in 2007.

Gary Younge is a highly-respected black British author and journalist who's captivated audiences both here and in the US. He was New York correspondent and subsuquently Editor-at-large for The Guardian newspaper and a regular columnist for the respected weekly US magazine, The Nation. Gary has taught Eritrean refugees in Sudan, has studied French and Russian and has a postgraduate diploma in Newspaper Journalism. He has been newspaper journalist of the year in the Ethnic Minority Media Awards for three years running.

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.

Garth Crooks was made an Honorary Fellow of the University in 2007.

In May 1981, Garth Crooks was the first black player to score in an FA Cup Final. By the time he retired from the game in 1990 he'd scored more than 200 goals. His broadcasting career began in 1982 when he joined the BBC sports team as a television pundit, and his services to Association Football were recognised in 1999 when he was awarded the OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.

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.

Gary Phillips was made an Honorary Fellow of the University in 2007.
Gary Phillips is Headteacher of Lilian Baylis, one of the most transformed schools in Britain. In just seven years Gary has lead a remarkable turn-around at the school that serves deeply disadvantaged communities and was once pilloried by politicians for its failures. Gary is now in demand as a speaker and commentator.

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.

Dr Steven Curson was made an Honorary Fellow of the University in 2006.

Dr Steven Curson is an educational innovator, trainer and communicator on health issues.

Steven was born and raised in North London. His parents met during the war, and his mother was a German Jewish Refugee and his father what is sometimes called an autodidact; a self-educated man who remarkably trained as a dentist, despite impoverished circumstances, and eventually became Professor of Dentistry at King's College.

Stephen himself went to William Ellis School in Parliament Hill Fields, founded in the nineteenth century to teach 'useful' subjects; as they were described by the founder, such as science and remarkably social science and to develop the faculty of reason; an approach very different from many other schools of the time. From William Ellis School, Steven gained admission to Cambridge to read medicine and it was there that he met his wife, Ruth, herself a medical student and now a distinguished gynaecologist.

From the outset, however, Steven was set to become a general practitioner rather than a hospital-based doctor. He attributes this to an early experience when, as a child in some distress, his local GP came out at night and, as he puts it, cured him.

After the usual period of training in hospital, Steven then joined a practice at Walworth Road which was led by two remarkable GPs, John McEwan and John Hewitson. It is widely acknowledged that this was a path-breaking practice, taking the best of the NHS into some of the most disadvantaged communities. It is fair to say that this was not just a medical practice but a group of people sharing a philosophy about social justice. John Hewitson himself was politically an anarchist linked, we believe, to the Freedom Press. The practice gained a reputation for its outreach work holding regular surgeries, for example, in the homeless centres in the Spike and Guildford Street, and worked closely with hospitals such as Guys and St Thomas.

It was possibly helpful, but not necessarily decisive, that it transpired at interview that one of the partners in the practice came from the same small town in Germany as his mother. But Steven, true to his vocation, stayed in the practice which became the Princess Street Group Practice for the rest of his career.

Being a GP would have been a sufficiently demanding career in itself, but from very early on, Steven became involved in education and training of others. In the early 1970s, staff at King's College London, including David Morrell, solicited the support of four local practices to establish what is now the Department of General Practice and Primary Care at King's. Steven was involved in this from the outset and became the first GP in South London, perhaps in London more generally, to take undergraduate students into the practice for training. He subsequently became course director for postgraduate training at St Thomas and has remained a passionate believer in continuous professional training and development. This was the hallmark of his own practice and a characteristic of his leadership, at all functions and levels.

He has always been a strong communicator and it was early in his career that he embarked on a parallel course, as a media doctor. Every Tuesday afternoon all his patients could tune in to LBC to hear their Dr Curson giving advice on all sorts of different medical ailments. Apart from radio he also worked for the prominent health and wellbeing magazine, Top Sante, published in the UK and France, in a similar vein.

For many years, the idea of primary care was most definitely secondary in health, but there were those who saw the future more clearly. In the 1980s, Steven and a few enlightened local GPs got together with others to champion the idea of a local GP-run hospital. Designed by Edward Cullinan Architects, a practice opened in 1985 in the Lambeth Community Care Centre in Monkton Street. It is located in a quiet 19th century back street overlooking its own beautiful garden. It was designed to accommodate short-stay patients cared for by in-house nurses, therapists and their own GP, and was an innovation in the attempt to provide medical treatment to patients in a home style environment.

It has been widely reported in the medical press and was singled out in the Tomlinson report as a model for Community Health Services in London. This was the epitome of primary care in practice; a path-breaking development which anticipated current thinking and policy. The provision of health is changing and whereas 35 years ago, pride of place and indeed resourcing was given to acute and general hospitals, today we see a major shift towards primary care, towards preventative medicine and indeed the whole notion of wellbeing. Steven Curson was clearly a pioneer in the way he anticipated the role and significance of community-based health provision.

In his long career, Steven became involved in all sorts of health management and policy for the Health Authority, visiting practices and local GPs and mentoring GPs. He was chair of the North Southwark PCG and on the Professional executive (PEC) for the Southwark PCT. He also worked for the PCT as one of their appraisers.

Over the years, Steven also provided support for many students and staff at London South Bank University who have been patients at the practice.

He formally retired after 35 years and there is little doubt that he will maintain his passion for education and training. Dr Steven Curson was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of London South Bank University for his services and leadership in health education, his passionate advocacy of professional training, and for his devotion to the provision of health for patients in the community.

Dame Ruth Silver was made an Honorary Doctor of Education in 2006.

Dame Ruth Muldoon Silver is a British academic administrator and promoter of education policy. She was Principal of Lewisham College for 17 years until 2009, and was chair of the Working Men's College governing board from 2002-05. In 2010, she became the chair of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), a public body for Further Education and skills development.

Sandra Horley was made an Honorary Fellow of the University in 2006.

Sandra Horley's life's work has been a struggle to get domestic violence taken seriously by people. She is an advocate of women's rights, a sociologist, author, and the Chief Executive of Refuge – the national domestic violence charity – from 1983-2020.

Sandra Horley is committed to campaigning on behalf of abused women and lobbying for changes in legislation and policy. She has spent most of her career battling against prejudices and lack of understanding around domestic violence.

Her work and contribution was recognised at the highest level when she was awarded the OBE for 'services to the protection of women and children' in 1999.

Born in Sarnia, Canada, she has a BA with distinction in sociology from McGill University.

Horley started working with abused and homeless women in Wolverhampton where she was the organiser of the Haven Project. She's also worked as a counsellor, homelessness officer and housing advice worker before becoming Chief Executive of Refuge in 1983.

Since that time, Refuge has grown beyond recognition. Today, Refuge is the UK's largest domestic violence service with a growing network of refuges and community based support including a 24-hour national domestic violence helpline. Refuge is a national "lifeline" for up to 80,000 women and children every year. The charity runs award winning campaigns that change the way people think about domestic violence. In 2006, the year Sandra was awarded the honorary fellowship, Refuge celebrated 35 years since opening the world's first refuge in Chiswick.

Horley explains that, "Our services (at Refuge) are there when a woman is most in need. We can give her and her children a safe place, understanding and support. With our help she is more likely to leave her violent partner and rebuild her life." At an interview she explained what keeps her going, "I've come across 1000's of brave, strong women in my working life – and they have made every minute of it worthwhile. This is what keeps me going."

Horley has over 28 years' experience in the field of domestic violence and abuse - experience and expertise that she has always shared with others. She has been involved in training police, health, housing and social workers. She has given evidence to UK Government select committees and has acted as an adviser to several foreign governments. She has provided expert evidence in numerous civil and ground breaking murder/manslaughter cases where the accused was an abused woman. She has produced numerous articles for the national press and professional journals and frequently gives radio and TV interviews. She has advised on TV 'soaps' like Eastenders on their storyline.

Horley has also written many acclaimed books on the subject of domestic violence. Her last book called 'Power and Control – Why Charming Men Can Make Dangerous Lovers' is widely praised.

Horley has made a remarkable contribution to the protection of women and children and to our greater understanding and awareness of domestic violence as an issue. She has inspired many to be brave and to stand up against it and recognise that it is unacceptable.