THE composer and choral director John Rutter has been appointed a Knight Bachelor in the King’s Birthday Honours list, published last Friday.
Sir John, who is 78, has composed hundreds of choral anthems, carols, and extended compositions, including opera and orchestral works. He has conducted orchestras around the world (Interview, 9 September 2005). Several of his works have been commissioned for or performed at royal occasions.
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.
Sir John was educated at Highgate School, where he was a chorister. He read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he sang in the choir. It was as an undergraduate here that he 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 in the UK and abroad.
Mr Brown, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, has been involved in numerous anti-poverty campaigns, and church and charity initiatives since leaving Downing Street, including ones to tackle the cost-of-living, remove the two-child benefit cap (Comment, 30 September 2022), and provide warm spaces for people who cannot afford to heat their homes (News, 14 June).
Jasvinder Sanghera, the founder 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 child abuse, forced marriage, and honour-based abuse.
Dame Jasvinder was one of the two members of the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) who were sacked by the Archbishops’ Council when it disbanded the Board last year, after months of disputes over its independence (News, 23 June 2023).
She served as the “survivor advocate” on the three-person board. Its demise was the subject of an independent review by a barrister, Sarah Wilkinson, who identified a “complex matrix of reasons”, including “structural” issues with the way in which the Archbishops’ Council had set up and administered the ISB (News, 15 December 2023).
The Church’s response to the findings of this, and the Jay report, are due to 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 in the Netflix series The Crown; and the chief executive of the Charity Commission, Dr Helen Stephenson CBE.
John Booth, a former member of the General Synod for Chichester diocese, chair of the National Gallery, and the outgoing chair of the Prince’s Trust Council, is appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO). He is a former churchwarden of St Andrew’s, Holborn, and a Guardian of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.
The Minister of Crathie Kirk and domestic chaplain to the King, the Revd Kenneth MacKenzie, who was with the late Queen Elizabeth II in Balmoral shortly before she died, is appointed Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO).
Rosemary Mason, a florist who creates the nosegays carried at the Royal Maundy service, including that carried by late Queen, is appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO).
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, is also 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.
Also receiving OBEs, for services to education, are Karen Bramwell, the chief executive of Forward As One Church of England Multi-Academy Trust, Bolton, and Andrew Forsey, the national director of the charity Feeding Britain (News, 12 November 2021).
Other recipients of the OBE include the Provost at the Brompton Oratory, the Very Revd Julian Large, for services to faith and integration in London, and the chief executive of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards, Ruth Barbara Louise Marvel, 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 who died from Covid-19 in the UK (News, 22 May 2020). A physical memorial was later created after more 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.
David Robilliard, a former member of the General Synod (1998 to 2021) and current member of Salisbury diocesan synod, is appointed MBE for services to the Church of England and Bailiwick of Guernsey.
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 arts.
The Revd Professor Alison Baverstock is appointed MBE for her charitable work supporting Armed Forces families through the Reading Force scheme, which she founded. The charity has distributed about 250,000 books to military families since its launch in 2011.
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; Anne Radcliffe, a long-term churchwarden of St Michael’s, Otterton, in Exeter diocese, for services to the people of Otterton; the Revd David Todd, a theatre chaplain in Edinburgh, for services to the arts in Scotland; Margaret Mary Donaldson, the organist of Wardie Parish Church, in Edinburgh; and Edna Edmond, a voluntary organist of Skene Parish Church, in Aberdeenshire.
Other BEMs are awarded to Shirley Biro, a long-serving lay chair of Newham deanery, for services to the community in the borough; 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 Hull, for services to the St Vincent De Paul Society and to the community in Eglinton, County Londonderry; Canon Stewart Lisk, an honorary chaplain to Cardiff Council, for services to community cohesion and to charity; and a Christian Aid volunteer, Myrtle McGregor, for services to the community in Clarkston, Glasgow.