Distinguished friends
- Maria Adebowale-Schwarte
- Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia
- Rajesh Agrawal
- Riz Ahmed
- Sughra Ahmed
- Keith Ajegbo
- Claire Alexander
- Kitty Arie
- Julian Baggini
- Zelda Baveystock
- Haidee Bell
- Richard Beswick
- Dinesh Bhugra
- Karan Bilimoria
- Geoffrey Bindman
- Karen Blackett
- Nicholas Blake
- Ian Blatchford
- David Blunkett
- Hina Bokhari
- Mihir Bose
- Alain de Botton
- John Bowers
- Stephen Briganti
- Des Browne
- Mukti Jain Campion
- Paul Canoville
- Gus Casely-Hayford
- Michael Cashman
- Saimo Chahal
- Reeta Chakrabarti
- Shami Chakrabarti
- Stephen Claypole
- Robin Cohen
- Linda Colley
- David Crystal
- Angélica Dass
- Prakash Daswani
- Sandie Dawe
- Navnit Dholakia
- Sherry Dobbin
- Ibrahim Dogus
- Lloyd Dorfman
- Alf Dubs
- John Dyson
- Damien Egan
- Graeme Farrow
- Shreela Flather
- Daniel Franklin
- Edie Friedman
- Manjit Singh Gill
- Teresa Graham
- Ann Grant
- Susie Harries
- Naomie Harris
- James Hathaway
- David Hencke
- Sophie Herxheimer
- Afua Hirsch
- Michael Howard
- Clive Jacobs
- Kevin Jennings
- Adrian Johns
- Shobu Kapoor
- Malik Karim
- Jackie Kay
- Ayub Khan-Din
- Francesca Klug
- Tony Kushner
- Kwasi Kwarteng
- Kwame Kwei-Armah
- David Kynaston
- Brian Lambkin
- Mark Lewisohn
- Joanna Lumley
- Michael Mansfield
- Sue McAlpine
- Neil Mendoza
- Nick Merriman
- Abigail Morris
- Hugh Muir
- Tessa Murdoch
- Sandy Nairne
- Bushra Nasir
- Susheila Nasta
- Eithne Nightingale
- John O’Farrell
- Kenneth Olisa
- Kunle Olulode
- Julia Onslow-Cole
- John Orna-Ornstein
- Herman Ouseley
- Sameer Pabari
- Ruth Padel
- Panikos Panayi
- Bhikhu Parekh
- Nikesh Patel
- David Pearl
- Caryl Phillips
- Mike Phillips
- Trevor Phillips
- Sunand Prasad
- Kavita Puri
- Charles Rix
- Trevor Robinson
- Aubrey Rose
- Michael Rosen
- Cathy Ross
- Salman Rushdie
- Jill Rutter
- Philippe Sands
- Sathnam Sanghera
- Konrad Schiemann
- Richard Scott
- Stephen Sedley
- Maggie Semple
- Babita Sharma
- Nikesh Shukla
- Jon Snow
- Sonia Solicari
- Robert Soning
- David Spence
- Danny Sriskandarajah
- Stelio Stefanou
- Dick Taverne
- Jane Thompson
- Robert Tombs
- Rumi Verjee
- Patrick Vernon
- Edmund de Waal
- Iqbal Wahhab
- Yasmin Waljee
- David Warren
- Iain Watson
- Debbie Weekes-Bernard
- Henning Wehn
- Nat Wei
- Janet Whitaker
- Gary Younge
As the descendant of Jewish immigrants, Sir Carl and Lady (Adele) Meyer, and Huguenot goldsmiths, Edward and Magdalen Feline, I owe a great deal to the inspiration provided by my forbears and to the knowledge of their significant contributions to culture and social philanthropy – espousing equal opportunities and women’s suffrage. My family history alone goes to show just how much this great nation owes to influences from Europe and beyond.
Tessa Murdoch
Dr Tessa Murdoch received her PhD on ‘Huguenot artists, designers and craftsmen in Great Britain and Ireland, 1680–1760’ at Westfield College, University of London, 1982. At the Museum of London from 1981, she curated the exhibition The Quiet Conquest: The Huguenots 1685–1985. She was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1988. She joined the V&A in 1990, working in Furniture and Woodwork for eleven years before taking up the post of Deputy Keeper in the newly combined department of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass in 2002. She was lead curator for the V&A’s 2005 Sacred Silver and Stained Glass Galleries and the 2009 Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Galleries.
She has published widely and enjoys using primary sources. Books include, as editor, Noble Households: Eighteenth Century Inventories of Great English Houses: A Tribute to John Cornforth (2006) and Beyond the Border: Huguenot Goldsmiths in Northern Europe and North America (2008), proceedings of the V&A conference held in January 2007. She was lead curator for the 2012/2013 exchange of exhibitions between the V&A and the Moscow Kremlin Museums. The Golden Age of the English Court from Henry VIII to Charles I, shown in Moscow in 2012–13 returned to London in 2013 as Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts & the Russian Tsars; Tessa co-edited the accompanying publication. With Heike Zech she co-edited and contributed to Going for Gold: Craftsmanship and Collecting of Gold Boxes (2014) proceedings of a conference held at the V&A and Wallace Collection in November 2010. Her article ‘Power and Plate: Sir Robert Walpole’s Silver’ was published in The Burlington Magazine, May 2015. In September 2015 she co-edited and contributed to Burning Bright: Essays in Honour of David Bindman, published by UCL press, available for download here.