Trustees

The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry KT KBE FRSE FSA DL

Richard, 10th Duke of Buccleuch and 12th Duke of Queensberry is responsible for the overall management of his family’s historic estate businesses, heritage properties and art collections including Drumlanrig Castle and Bowhill in Scotland and Boughton House in Northamptonshire. He has long been closely involved in the wider heritage world as a former Trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and for ten years as President of the National Trust for Scotland. Currently he is a Trustee of The Royal Collection. He has recently been appointed High Steward of Westminster Abbey.

Walter Dalkeith

Walter Dalkeith was born in 1984 and educated at Eton College and at Edinburgh University, where he graduated with a degree in Geography and Social History. He studied for a further degree in Commercial Property Chartered Surveying and worked at Native Land, a London based residential developer with which Buccleuch is closely involved. Walter has a keen interest in photography and lives in the Borders with his family. Walter is Vice Chairman of Buccleuch.

Dame Rosalind Savill DBE, FBA, FSA

Dame Rosalind, Curator Emeritus, the Wallace Collection, London, became a Museum Assistant in the Ceramics Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1973, moving to the Wallace Collection in 1974. There she worked for thirty-seven years, becoming an Assistant Director in 1979, Director in 1992, and retired in 2011. Her major publication is The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain, 3 vols, 1988, which won her the National Art-Collection Fund prize for Scholarship in 1990, and she has written numerous articles and papers, chiefly on Sèvres porcelain.

In 1990 she became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, in 2000 she was awarded a CBE for Services to the Study of Ceramics, in 2006 she became a Fellow of the British Academy, and in 2009 she was awarded a DBE for Services to the Arts. She has Visiting Professorships from the University of Buckingham and the University of the Arts, London, won the European Woman of Achievement Award (Arts and Media) 2005, was a Member of the Conseil d’Administration at Sèvres Cité de la Céramique and is an Officier dans L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France.

Currently her Trusteeships include the Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust, the Royal Collection Trust, the Samuel Courtauld Trust, and the Wallace Collection Foundation. She is also President of the French Porcelain Society, a Syndic of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and on the Academic Committee at Waddesdon Manor.

Sir John Robinson

Sir John Robinson is a Northamptonshire landowner with a background in finance, estate management and agriculture, and a wide experience in local charity work and board membership of commercial and charitable organisations. Other main active memberships include the boards of the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, and the Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust.

Wilf Weeks OBE

Wilf Weeks was a public affairs consultant and co-founded GJW Government Relations. Before that he was Private Secretary to the Rt Hon Sir Edward Heath.

Wilf is currently Trustee for the Trust for London, Trustee of Gainsborough’s House, Vice Chairman of the Prison Advice and Care Trust, Trustee of British Future and Chairman of the Development Board at Charterhouse. He was Chairman of Spitalfields Music, the Friends of the Tate and the Dulwich Picture Gallery and a Trustee and Development Chairman at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He was also Chairman of Heritage Education Trust and won the Goodman Award for Arts and Business in 2004.

Tracy Borman

Tracy Borman is an acclaimed author and historian. Born in Lincoln, she studied and taught history at the University of Hull and was awarded a PhD in 1997. She went on to a successful career in heritage and has worked for a range of historic properties and national heritage organisations, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Archives and English Heritage. Tracy is now joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that manages five of the most iconic historic sites in Britain: the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace and the Banqueting House.  She is also Chief Executive of the Heritage Education Trust, which encourages children to visit and learn from historic properties through the Sandford Award.

Tracy has regularly appeared on television and radio, and has featured in a range of magazine and newspaper articles. She is a regular contributor to history magazines, including articles in BBC History Magazine on the history of beauty and 18th century ‘It’ Girls. She travels across the country and overseas giving talks on a wide range of subjects.

Tracy’s books include Elizabeth’s Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen, which was Book of the Week on Radio 4. Her biography of Thomas Cromwell was a Sunday Times bestseller and The Private Lives of the Tudors featured in a series presented by Tracy on Yesterday TV.

Ian Gow

Ian Gow was born in Edinburgh and educated at George Heriot’s and Trinity College, Cambridge where he read History of Art. After three years in the London Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings he transferred back to the National Monuments Record of Scotland and became Head of Architectural Collections. In 1998 he was appointed Curator of the National Trust for Scotland but went part time after his sixtieth birthday as Chief Curator Emeritus. He is now retired. He has written several books and many articles on the historic architecture and the decorative arts of Scotland including many Guidebooks including the 1995 Guide to The Palace of Holyroodhouse. He is also a Trustee of the Textile Conservation Foundation. He was Hon Archivist and Curator of The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland of which he is an Hon. Fellow

Benny Higgins

Lady Judith Steel, MBE – Trustee Emeritus

Lady Steel is a writer poet, playwright and journalist. Her numerous works include an anthology of horse poetry, Horse Tales and Saddle Songs, with foreword by the Princess Royal and proceeds going to Riding for the Disabled.

Lady Steel studied Law at Edinburgh University and is the wife of former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Lord (Baron) Steel of Aikwood and now Life Peer in the House of Lords. A former theatre producer and director, she founded the Rowan Tree Theatre Company in the Scottish Borders in 1987 and in 2011 received an MBE for Services to Theatre in the Scottish Borders