Gordon Richardson
Pro Vice-Chancellor
Mr Gordon Richardson is the Co-Chair of Bristol Disability Equality Forum, a charity which provides a voice for disabled people across Bristol. He is also a Disability Commissioner for Bristol, championing the rights of disabled people and giving them more influence in decision-making within the city.
Let me introduce Mr Richardson himself.
Gordon contracted polio at the age of three which left him paralysed from the chest down. He nonetheless completed full-time education and received a degree in Economics and Accounting from this University in 1974. He remembers that, at that time, he was fortunate to receive a grant of £325 a year which covered living costs, books and travel. It also covered occasional meals at the young Keith Floyd’s restaurant in Clifton, where Floyd brought bowls of onion soup to the students – on the steps if there were no tables left downstairs in the restaurant.
He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1986 at Thomson McLintock, the predecessor to KPMG, and later qualified and worked as a Financial Planning Practitioner with Hargreaves Lansdown, a major Bristol financial services company.
Gordon took early retirement from the company at the age of 50, primarily to focus on charitable work with disabled people, to try and give back to society what society had given him.
His first big project was co-founding the Vassall Centre Trust (VCT) which required the regeneration of a 60,000-square-foot building. The building itself had been constructed in the Second World War as a 12-ward evacuation hospital prior to D-Day. It was then repurposed as accessible offices so that charities working with disabled people could employ them in leadership and other roles.
The Vassall Centre in Fishponds was one of the earliest barrier –free, large workplaces in the UK. It was therefore of considerable interest. Gordon recounts that on the day of the official opening of a regenerated part of the building they were delighted to be hosting media teams from large national newspaper and TV outlets in the UK, and indeed from overseas too. Sadly, this turned out not to be because of the innovative nature of the Vassall Centre, but because the Member of Parliament performing the opening was at his first public engagement after a scandal involving his personal life had been exposed.
Gordon remained at the Vassall Centre Trust, initially as a founding Trustee and then Chairman, for 16 years. Times were changing, however. The need for specialist provision reduced following the introduction of legislation demanding that all offices need to be accessible. In addition, the Charity Commission brought in a recommendation that no trustees should hold office for more than nine years at a time, and Gordon had well surpassed this. He therefore resigned to make way for new blood.
Gordon’s time was then directed to the Bristol Disability Equality Forum, of which, as we have mentioned, he is now Co-Chair.
It would be remiss for me not to mention some of Gordon’s other achievements.
He was the first disabled trustee at Designability, formerly known as the Bath Institute of Medical Engineering. The Institute was established in 1968 to design and develop vital medical equipment for hospitals and items for disabled people. Examples of the products they design and produce are: seat elevators that raise chairs to make them easy to get in and out of; an electric wheelchair for one-to-five-year-olds called a Wizzybug, which looks like a ladybird; and a day clock for people with dementia.
Gordon was also instrumental in establishing the Bristol Walking Alliance. This is a consortium of organisations and individuals campaigning to improve Bristol’s walking environment, including for disabled people. The aim of the Alliance is to create an environment for those on foot that is welcoming, safe, convenient and inclusive. Many of you who have been walking around in Bristol during your time here will have benefited from some of the work of the Alliance through measures such as cycle lanes, dropped pavements and traffic calming measures.
Gordon is also Chair of the British Polio Fellowship, which provides information, welfare and support to people living with the effects of polio and post-polio syndrome. He is Treasurer of Bristol West Diabetes Support Network, and he received a commendation from the Lord Mayor of Bristol in 2016 for his 15 years of service as a pre-school governor and the representative for nursery schools on the Bristol Schools Forum.
Pro Vice-Chancellor, Mr Gordon Richardson has been nominated in recognition of his significant work on behalf of Bristol’s disabled community to improve their quality of life and to ensure due consideration is given to their needs.
Pro Vice-Chancellor, I present to you Gordon Cameron Richardson as eminently worthy of the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa.