Heard the one about the bishop, the builder and the businessman?
It’s not the latest joke on the stand-up circuit but the headlines behind the latest honours to be given by the University of Huddersfield.
A leading clergyman, who has become the first Bishop of Huddersfield, joins professors and knights of the realm among the distinguished people who are to be honoured by the University.
Each will receive the title Honorary Doctor of the University at ceremonies taking place in July.
The Right Rev Tony Robinson is the Bishop of Pontefract, but also the interim area Bishop of Huddersfield, temporarily occupying an all-new Church of England post that has been created as a result of a reshuffle of the Diocese of Wakefield.
Bishop Tony is a former teacher who moved to West Yorkshire in 1997, first as Archdeacon of Pontefract and since 2002 as Bishop of Pontefract.
He chairs Kirklees Faiths Forum and is co-Chair of North Kirklees Interfaith Council working with Muslims and Christians in Dewsbury and Batley. He was a founder member of Interfaith Kirklees, which works with schools to provide education and promote community cohesion, and of Wakefield Interfaith Group, which he also chairs.
The “builder” is world renowned project manager Bernard Ainsworth, who lives in Huddersfield, and is the go-to man for major construction projects.
He was the head of development for the iconic London Shard and the surrounding London Bridge Quarter for the Sellar Property Group and his previous projects include the Millennium Dome and the Manchester Commonwealth Games, which played a major role in regenerating the east of the city.
Mr Ainsworth has developed close links with the University of Huddersfield’s School of Art, Design and Architecture, where he supports students on project-based work.
Sir Rodney Walker is a businessman who has earned a prominent public profile as a sports administrator and it was for services to sport that he was knighted in 1996.
He is Wakefield born and is a former chairman of the town’s rugby league club. He is also a former chairman of the Rugby Football League and Sport England. He has also held positions with organisations that include the Amateur Athletics Association of England and the London Marathon Charitable Trust.
Others to be honoured in the summer include:
The violinist Irvine Arditti is the leader of the Arditti Quartet, which he co-founded as a student in 1974. The Quartet is dedicated to playing new works and has become an institution in the field of contemporary chamber music. It has performed works by almost all of today’s leading composers.
Prof David Crystal OBE is one of the world’s leading experts in the field of linguistics. He acts as a special consultant for Babel: The Language Magazine, which is published from the University of Huddersfield, itself a key centre for the discipline.
Philip Darnell is a Huddersfield graduate who has had a highly successful career working for technology giant Hewlett Packard, rising to the position of Vice-President Marketing Operations and Field Marketing.
Prof Guy Lloyd-Jones is a Huddersfield graduate, who studied applied chemistry and chemical technology, graduating in 1989. He did industrial training locally at ICI Pharmaceuticals before embarking on a distinguished academic research career that has led to his recent election as a Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the highest honours in the scientific world.
Sir John Sorrell, who was knighted in 2008, is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the founder of the large and successful design business Newell and Sorrell.
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