Museum Trustees

Chairman

The Rt Hon The Lord Sterling of Plaistow GCVO CBE

Jeffrey Sterling joined the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company's Board as a non-executive Director in 1980, became Executive Deputy Chairman and then Executive Chairman of P&O three years later, standing down in May 2005. He was Chairman of P&O Princess Cruises plc 2000 to 2003.

Prior to his involvement in P&O, Lord Sterling founded Sterling Guarantee Trust and was a Special Adviser to successive Secretaries of State for Trade and Industry. He is the joint founder and current Chairman of Motability, a charity that provides cars for people with disabilities and currently has more than 400,000 vehicles on the road. Lord Sterling is also an Honorary Rear Admiral in the Royal Naval Reserve.

Brief biographies in order of appointment

Nigel Macdonald

Nigel Macdonald is a Director of Coca-Cola Hellenic and is also chairman of a retail company. He was a senior partner in Ernst and Young for many years, retiring in 2003. He is a past President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and was a member of the Cadbury Committee. Until 2005 he was a member of the Competition Commission and from 1992 until 2004 a member of the BSI Board, and Chairman of its Audit Committee. Until 2011 he was a member of the Audit Board of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund and an advisor to that organisation.

Mrs Gilly Drummond OBE DL

Gilly Drummond is a Commissioner for English Heritage and chairs its Historic Parks and Gardens Panel; she takes a particular interest in Greenwich as a World Heritage Site. Gilly is a keen cruising sailor and has sailed in the wake of Darwin and Fitzroy, Captain Cook and Captain Vancouver. A member of a Liverpool shipbuilding family, now living on the Solent shore, Gilly is a Governor of Millbrook School in Southampton and has an enthusiasm for promoting interest in maritime history. She is the President of the Association of Gardens Trusts, Patron of Green Space and of The Folly Fellowship and a Trustee of Gilbert White's House & The Oates Museum and of the Chawton House Library.

Sir John Guinness CB

Sir John was Chairman of British Nuclear Fuels plc from 1992 to 1999 and Permanent Secretary at the Department of Energy from 1991 to 1992. Other previous appointments include Member of the Development Committee, National Portrait Gallery; Trustee of the Prince's Youth Business Trust; and Chairman of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art. He is currently a Trustee of the Heritage Conservation Trust and a member of the British Library's Development Committee. Sir John is particularly interested in portraits, of which the Museum has a large and distinguished collection.

Admiral the Lord Boyce KG GCB OBE DL

Until his retirement in 2003, Lord Boyce was, as Chief of Defence Staff, the Armed Forces' most senior officer. He was First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff from 1998 to 2001. He holds appointments on a number of charities including the RNLI, White Ensign Association and Officers Association, was President of St. John Ambulance (London District) 2003-11, and is a Patron of the Submariners' Association and Sail 4 Cancer. He was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 2004.

David Moorhouse CBE

David Moorhouse was Executive Chairman of Lloyd's Register and Vice-Chairman of Maritime London. He is a former Chairman and Chief Executive of the Process Division of the Kvaerner Group, a Norwegian industrial holding company. He is also a former Board Member and Deputy Chairman of the Department for Trade and Industry's Offshore Supplies Office and a life member of the UK's Foundation for Science and Technology.

Dr David Quarmby CBE

David Quarmby is Chairman of the RAC Foundation, Chairman of the Department of Transport’s Motorists’ Forum, President of the Blackheath Society and a Member of the Woolwich Regeneration Board.  He is a former director of consultants Colin Buchanan & Partners, former chairman of the Transport Research Institute at Edinburgh Napier University, and former non-executive director of Abellio Group, the international subsidiary of the Netherland Railways.  He was Chairman of SeaBritain 2005 - a nationwide celebration of Britain's relationship with the sea; a Governor of the University of Greenwich and a Trustee of the St Paul's Cathedral Foundation. Previous appointments held include Board Member of Transport for London, Chairman of the Docklands Light Railway, Chairman of the British Tourist Authority, and Board Director and joint Managing Director of Sainsbury's.

Sir Robert Crawford CBE

Robert Crawford was Director-General from 1995 to 2008 of the Imperial War Museum, in which he had served since 1968, and Chairman of the National Museums Directors Conference, 2001-2006. Now retired, he is Chairman of the Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College and a trustee of a number of museums including the National Museum of the Royal Navy, National Museums Liverpool, and Chatham Historic Dockyard, a Vice-Patron of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust and a Vice-President of the Federation of Merchant Mariners.

Linda Hutchinson

Linda Hutchinson was Head Teacher at the Townley Grammar School for Girls in Bexleyheath, a specialist school for the performing and visual arts.

Before this, she served as Deputy Head Teacher at Beaverwood School for Girls in Chislehurst and as Senior Teacher at the Frances Bardsley School for Girls. Whilst Head Teacher, Townley Grammar School received the British Council’s International Award for promoting international understanding in recognition of the work developing links with schools in India and China featuring the introduction of an exchange programme involving both students and teachers. She also successfully managed two building projects at the school, one of which is to be used by the National College of School Leaders as a model to encourage head teachers to consider sustainability in building projects.

Eleanor Boddington

Eleanor Boddington is Senior Solicitor at the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest charity, where she advises on all aspects of general commercial law and charity law (2003 to date). She was Executive Assistant to the Wellcome Trust’s Director with responsibility for liaising with the Trust’s Executive Board members and its Board of Governors (trustees) of Wellcome, as well as speech writing and policy work (2002 to 2003).  Prior to joining the Wellcome Trust as Solicitor in 2000, she was a solicitor in the commercial litigation department of Ashurst Solicitors, advising on a wide range of general commercial contentious issues (1996 to 2000).  Currently, she co-chairs the In-House Charity Lawyers Group in London, and previously chaired the Legal and Tax Committee of the European Foundation Centre in Brussels.

Professor Geoffrey Crossick

Professor Geoffrey Crossick took up his appointment as Vice-Chancellor of the University of London in September 2010. He was until April 2010 Warden of Goldsmiths, University of London, where he had responsibility for the leadership of a research-intensive institution oriented towards the arts, humanities and social sciences. He is a member of the Governing Board of the Courtauld Institute, the Board of Universities UK and the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s Enterprise and Skills Strategic Committee. Until 2002 he was Professor of History at the University of Essex, where he held various senior management positions. He then served as Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Board, which he led through its successful transformation into a full Arts and Humanities Research Council before joining Goldsmiths in 2005. His main area of research is the urban social history of 19th and 20th century Britain and continental Europe (particularly France). He has published and/or edited seven books and over 40 articles which have appeared in journals and edited collections. He has also written extensively on higher education policy as well as on the creative and cultural economy. He chairs the university sector’s Financial Sustainability Strategy Group. He is a member of the British Library’s Advisory Council and an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Dr Christopher Lintott

Currently, Dr Lintott is Researcher in Astrophysics at Oxford University (2009 to date), as well as Junior Research Fellow at New College, Oxford (2010 to date). In 2003, he joined the BBC’s ‘Sky at Night’ TV programme as Astronomical Researcher before becoming Co-Presenter in 2005. He writes a regular column for the Times, and has had articles published the Guardian and the New York Times. He is the Executive Chair of the Citizen Science Alliance, a collaboration of 7 science institutions which manages projects involving nearly 100 researchers and educators.