THE Revd Professor Bernard Silverman, an eminent statistician and, until last year, the chief scientific adviser to the Home Office, is among the churchpeople honoured in the New Year Honours list. He is knighted for services to public service and science; and currently his main area of research is modern slavery. Emeritus Professor of Statistics in the University of Oxford, he was ordained in 2000, and has held honorary curacies in Bristol and Oxford dioceses.
There is also a knighthood for a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Very Revd Professor Iain Torrance, Pro-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, in recognition of his services to higher education and theology.
Among the other most senior honours announced, Lord Bragg of Wigton has been appointed a Companion of Honour. A champion of the Authorised Version of the Bible, and the author of a new biography of Tyndale, he is honoured for his services to broadcasting and the arts.
The RAF’s Chaplain-in-Chief since 2014, AVM the Ven. Jonathan Chaffey, who has been an RAF Chaplain since 1990, is appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).
Among the CBEs are Professor Joy Carter, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Winchester, one of the Cathedrals Group universities, for services to higher education; the author Jilly Cooper, well known for her racy novels, but also a self-confessed fan of her village church: “No newcomer to Bisley need feel lonely, because all ages can join in the thriving social life generated by our lovely church”; and the Principal of the Royal Academy of Music, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, who has produced many recordings of sacred music and worked with several of the leading cathedral choirs.
Among the OBEs are Lynn Codling, Executive Headteacher of Portswood Primary and St Mary’s C of E Primary School, for services to education; and the archaeologist and architectural historian Timothy Tatton-Brown, for services to heritage. Mr Tatton-Brown is consultant archaeologist to Lambeth Palace, and formerly consultant archaeologist to Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester, and Salisbury Cathedrals, Westminster Abbey, and St George’s Chapel, Windsor. He has been a member of the Council for the Care of Churches, Canterbury diocesan advisory committee, and Exeter Cathedral fabric advisory committee.
PAIn recognition: the Very Revd Professor Iain Torrance, who was knighted in the New Year Honours list, at the Kirk’s General Assembly in 2017
Among the MBEs are Iain Ball, for services to cathedral choral music and young people; Patricia Boyd, former head of RE at George Watson’s College, Edinburgh, for services to religious and moral education in Scotland, where she has been convener of the Scottish Joint Committee for RME; Jane Clarke, who worked for 28 years with the Churches Housing Association, Dudley and District (CHADD), for her services to vulnerable women and children; and Wendy Coombey, community partnership and funding officer at the diocese of Hereford, for services to churches in Herefordshire.
Also appointed MBE are Lichfield’s director of education, Colin Hopkins, for his services both as a school governor and in chairing the trustees of the Church of England Central Education Trust; the chair of the Pentecostal Credit Union, Ganiyu Leslie Laniyan; Thomas Metcalfe, for services to bell-ringing in Cumbria; and Alan Regin for services to campanology and the heritage of bell-ringing; the founder of the London Community Gospel Choir, Bazil Meade, for services to the development of gospel music in Britain; Carol Angela Murray, a volunteer and member of the Bahrain Anglican Church Council, for services to charity and the community in Bahrain; Edward Watts, the Mission to Seafarers Port Chairman in Newport, for services to the Scout Movement, Mission to Seafarers, and Community Cohesion in south Wales; and Janet Woodroffe, churchwarden of Wistanstow, south Shropshire, for voluntary and charitable services.
Among recipients of the British Empire Medal (BEM) are Bryan Birkett, for services to bell-ringing in Nottinghamshire; Ann Browning, Chairman of the Berkhamsted Committee of the Children’s Society, in Hertfordshire, for charitable services; Susan Clarey, Office Manager at St Anne’s C of E Primary School, Bishop Auckland, and Bobby (Roberta) Harrington, Education Officer at Chelmsford Cathedral, both for services to education; Nadine Daniel, the national refugee coordinator for the Church of England, for services to interfaith and community relations on Merseyside; John Cox, chairman of the Friends of Holy Trinity, Bradford-upon-Avon, who led the fund-raising for a reordering of the church in 2016; Keith Fleming, for services to young people through the Church Lads’ and Church Girls’ Brigades, and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme; Janet Lake, a churchwarden at Brancaster, in Norfolk, for services to the community; Janet Ryles, for services to the community in Ashton-on-Trent, Derbyshire, where she runs a CAMEO group for women at All Saints’; Joyce Taylor, for services to Durham Cathedral; Roy Tricker, a Reader and Lay Canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and an expert on Suffolk’s churches, and the writer or adviser for many guides, for services to heritage in Suffolk; Lisa Turner, administrator in the Four Churches Benefice in south Cambridgeshire, for services to the community; Graham Wadley, organist and director of music at St Mary’s, Wivenhoe, in Essex, for more than 50 years, for services to church music; and Doris Williams, who chairs the North-East group of the National Association of Choirs, for services to choral singing.