Meet The Current Board of Trustees
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Bill Shelford DLChairman of the Friends of The Keep Archives. Bill Shelford formerly the Senior Partner of a firm of international lawyers based in London with offices in other countries. Life long resident of Sussex, High Sheriff East Sussex 2009, Deputy Lieutenant East Sussex 2011 to present, also Chair of the Trustees of Chailey Heritage Foundation (formerly Chair of Governors). Keen walker, gardener and hacking golfer. His interest in historical documents stems from his early training as a Solicitor when much of the legal title to land was unregistered.
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Richard PurseyRichard is Treasurer of the Friends of The Keep Archives. Richard is proud to be Sussex born and bred; Having been born in Henfield (his parents lived for a while in the famous cat house) and then growing up in Shoreham-by-Sea. After being educated at Steyning Grammar School he went on to be articled to a West End firm of Chartered Accountants where he started to specialise in taxation, eventually retiring from Ernst & Young as a senior director of tax in 2002. Richard has enjoyed participating in many sports over the year but now enjoys walking, a leisurely game of golf, not very serious Bridge and watching Brighton and Hove Albion with his wife, Penny, to whom he has been happily married for well over 50 years.
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Diana HansenDiana is Secretary of the Friends and editor of the Newsletter. She was for most of her life a civil servant, and then became Director of the Somerset House Trust, which involved organising the famous ice rink as well as looking after a Grade 1 listed building. On retirement, with her husband Julian she came to Brighton and studied for an MA in history at the University of Sussex – where she discovered the joys of paleography and the amazing resources of the East Sussex Record Office under the inspiring tutelage of Christopher Whittick.
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Philip HamertonMembership Secretary of the Friends of the Keep Archives. Philip, although past retirement age, still works for the South East Coast Ambulance Service, now as a Patient Experience Officer 2 days a week, having been employed with the Service for 40 years, as a Paramedic, Quality Manager for Sussex achieving ISO9002 for its systems, also managing staff on both the A&E and Patient Transport Services. He has lived locally since moving to Brighton in 1954, and is especially interested in the history of Sussex. He achieved an Undergraduate Certificate for the Life History Work Course that used to be offered by the CCE at the University of Sussex.
He is also involved with the Shoreham Society, is a Trustee of the Brighton Tram 53 Society, which is actively restoring the last Brighton tram that was withdrawn in 1938, and runs the Brighton Railway Rifle Club. In addition, has spent the last 35 years working as a volunteer at the East Somerset Railway. Married with 2 children and 4 grandchildren, he lives in Shoreham-by-Sea with his wife Margaret. |
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Sheena ParkerSheena is currently working on the development of the FoTKA website with colleagues in FoTKA and The Keep archive. Before that, she was FoTKA Visits Co-ordinator for several years, standing down in 2017.
Graduating in medicine from Edinburgh University, Sheena worked as a Hospital Physician, Public Health Consultant, General Manager and Director of Public Health. For several years towards the end of her career, she was Senior Medical Advisor to the government Department of Health. All roles have had a strong medical, management and research components, now redirecting from medicine to history! Sheena lives near Tunbridge Wells with Alistair, enjoying music (playing the piano), language study, and travel. |
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Philip PopleRetired local authority employee. Gardener and assistant to the civic office Lewes District Council for forty years at Lewes House and Southover Grange. Historic tours guide Lewes House, Lewes Town Hall and Bishopstone. Local historian Bishopstone. Publications Bishopstone and Seaford in Old Photographs Vol 1-11.Member of the following committees, Lewes Branch Council, for the protection of Rural England, Lewes Heritage open days and Trustee Willitt Trust Bishopstone. At various times, member Bishopstone Parochial Church Council representative Lewes and Seaford Deanery Synod. Trustee and Chairman Bishopstone Parish Hall. Judge for local flower and produce shows and Seaford in bloom. Past President Lewes Barbican Rotary.
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Annette ShelfordRecent graduate of Brighton University in English Literature and Media. Interests local and family history, Art (vice chairman of Newick and District Decorative and Fine Art Society) travelling - anywhere still permitted! Life long fascination with old manuscripts and books. married to Bill Shelford and has lived in East Sussex for over 40 years.
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Penny PurseyPenny grew up in Shoreham-by-Sea and went to school there and in Worthing. Penny’s first job was at a Solicitor’s practice in Hove , where she found the old documents fascinating. After having children Penny worked for herself keeping accounting records for small businesses. After retiring she became a voluntary senior observer with the Institute of Advanced Motorists. Penny has been married to her husband Richard for over 50 years and they have two daughters and two grand-children. Penny now enjoys travelling, playing golf and bridge and pottering in her garden!
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Clive WilsonClive Wilson attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into The Queens Regiment (Royal Sussex), the county regiment, leaving the Army as a Captain.
He graduated from London University with a BA Honours in History of Art and Architecture. In 1983 he set up an architectural practice in Crowborough together with his wife Chantal specialising in Listed and period properties and still works full time in the practice having received several awards for alterations and improvements to Grade II* and Grade II buildings. In 2013 both he and Chantal received Civic Awards ‘for making Wealden a special place to live’. Historical research forms an important part of the practice, making valuable use of the libraries and record offices. He was a trustee of the Combined Military Services Museum Collections in the Eastbourne Redoubt until the Borough Council closed the building and the collections were redistributed elsewhere earlier this year. He recognises the important support that FoTKA gives to the County Record Office and is pleased to serve as a trustee . |
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Christopher WhittickI read law at Worcester College, Oxford, where I was president of the University Archaeological Society. I qualified as an archivist at Liverpool University in 1975 and, after jobs at Norwich and Cardiff, joined the staff of the East Sussex Record Office in 1977. I was employed as Senior Archivist until November 2016, when I became County Archivist, a post which I ceased to hold in October 2019.
I have a particular interest in medieval crime and administration, and in the application of archival sources to the study of standing buildings and topography. I have written one family and 17 individual entries for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and am co-author of several books on the East Sussex artist Eric Ravilious. My book Accounts and records of the manor of Mote in Iden, 1442-1551, 1673, co-authored with Dr Mark Gardiner of Queen’s University, Belfast, was published by the Sussex Record Society in 2011. In 2012 I co-edited a volume of essays in honour of the legal historian Paul Brand. I have taught palaeography for the universities of Wales, London, Sussex and Keele, written a palaeography training module for the University of Liverpool and have been a part-time lecturer on the University College London archives course. I sat on the council of the Sussex Archaeological Society and served as Honorary General Secretary for ten years. I am on the editorial board of Sussex Archaeological Collections, a vice-president of the Sussex Archaeological Society, president of the Wealden Iron Research Group, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society and an associate of the Artworkers’ Guild. I have been a trustee of the Sussex Historic Churches Trust since 1998 and became its chairman in 2010. My appointment as a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of East Sussex appeared in the London Gazette on 22 September 2017. |
