THE composer and choral director John Rutter has been appointed a Knight Bachelor within the King’s Birthday Honours list, published late on Friday evening.
Sir John, who’s 78, has composed a whole lot of choral anthems, carols, and prolonged compositions, including opera and orchestral pieces. He has conducted orchestras all over the world (Interview, 9 September 2005).
He is a vice-president of the Joyful Company of Singers, president of the Bach Choir, and president of the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD).
Sir John was educated at Highgate School, where he was a chorister. He read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was also a choir member, and as an undergraduate had his first compositions published. He served as director of music at Clare from 1975 to 1979. In 1981, he founded the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts, and with whom he has made several recordings of sacred choral repertoire, including his own works.
The campaigner Alan Bates, who founded the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance in response to the Post Office Horizon IT scandal (News, 22 May), has also been knighted.
The former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown was appointed a Companion of Honour for Public and Charitable Services within the UK and Abroad.
Mr Brown, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, has been involved in quite a few anti-poverty campaigns, and church and charity initiatives since leaving Downing Street, including ones to tackle the cost-of-living, remove the two-child profit cap (Comment, 30 September 2022), and supply warm spaces for individuals who cannot afford to heat their homes (News, 14 June).
Jasvinder Sanghera, the founding father of the human-rights charity Karma Nirvana (Interview, 5 September 2014), has been appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to victims of kid abuse, forced marriage, and honour-based abuse.
Dame Jasvinder was one in every of the 2 members of the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) who were sacked by the Archbishops’ Council when it disbanded the Board last yr, after months of disputes over its independence (News, 23 June 2023).
She served because the “survivor advocate” on the three-person board. Its demise was the topic of an independent review by a barrister, Sarah Wilkinson, who identified a “complex matrix of reasons”, including “structural” issues with the way in which through which the Archbishops’ Council had arrange and administered the ISB (News, 15 December 2023).
The Church’s response to the findings of this, and the Jay report, are as a consequence of be discussed by the General Synod next month.
Also appointed DBE are the artist Tracey Emin; the actor Imelda Staunton, who recently portrayed Queen Elizabeth within the Netflix series The Crown; and the chief executive of the Charity Commission, Dr Helen Stephenson CBE.
Stephen Hicks, who chairs the Christian foodbank charity the Trussell Trust, is appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to charity, as is the Director of Policy and Public Affairs for Carers UK, Emily Holzhausen OBE, for services to unpaid carers (News, 14 June). A former Director General of the Royal British Legion, Charles Byrne, can also be appointed CBE, for services to veterans.
Kate Eves, who chaired the Brook House Inquiry (News, 22 September 2023), is appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for public service.
Karen Bramwell, the chief executive of Forward As One Church of England Multi-Academy Trust, Bolton, is appointed OBE for services to education, as is Andrew Forsey, the national director of the charity Feeding Britain (News, 12 November 2021).
The chief executive of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards, Ruth Barbara Louise Marvel, is appointed OBE for services to young people.
The Director of Development at St Paul’s Cathedral, Nicola Wynne, is appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to heritage and to charity, “particularly the Remember Me project”: the digital memorial, launched in March 2020, to those that died from Covid-19 within the UK (News, 22 May 2020).
A physical memorial was later created after greater than £2 million was raised in crowdfunding (News, 29 July 2022).
The secretary of the Wandsmen at St Paul’s Cathedral, Patrick Wilkins, is appointed MBE for services to the cathedral.
An area manager for Christians Against Poverty, in York, Jackie Adie, and Dr Margaret Austin, a former Chief Medical Adviser for St John Ambulance, are also appointed MBE.
Sarah Hosking (Features, 20 September 2019), who founded and for 20 years ran the Hosking Houses Trust, is appointed MBE for services to literature and the humanities.
The Vicar General of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London, the Very Revd Fr Mykola Matwijiwskyj, is appointed MBE for services to refugee resettlement.
Among those awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) are the Vicar of Hope Church, Hounslow, the Revd Claire Clarke, for services to the community; Timothy Smith. the Director of Music at St Mary’s, Harrow on the Hill, for services to music and education; the Revd David Todd, a theatre chaplain in Edinburgh, for services to the humanities in Scotland; Margaret Mary Donaldson, the organist at Wardie Parish Church, Edinburgh; and Edna Edmond, a voluntary organist at Skene Parish Church, Aberdeenshire.
Other BEMs are awarded to Ellen Barnett, a volunteer at St Saviour’s, Craigavon, in Northern Ireland, for services to music and the community; Ian Farthing, a trustee of St Mark’s Church Preschool, Bedford, for services to early-years learning; Marguerite Mary Teresa Hull, for services to the St Vincent De Paul Society and to the community in Eglinton, County Londonderry; Canon Stewart Lisk, Honorary Chaplain for Cardiff Council, for services to community cohesion and to charity; and a Christian Aid volunteer, Myrtle Elise McGregor, for services to the community in Clarkston, Glasgow.
