Heritage

Geoffrey Bond is a member of the Campaign Group raising funds for the improvement and better interpretation of the famous William Morris house, Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire which, amongst its activities will be seeking to help disadvantaged young people with learning and outreach programmes to schools as well as the development of craft skills through an artist-in-residence programme. Morris described Kelmscott as his ‘heaven on earth’.

Online Video: https://youtu.be/jj3vN7LBx6k

(Since 2019 The Arts Scholars Cultural Scholarship Scheme)
As a former Sheriff of the City of London in 2004, Geoffrey Bond established in 2010 The Arts Scholars Cultural Scholarship Scheme which each summer places young people from Inner London schools with heritage institutions, such as the Buckingham Palace, Victorian & Albert Museum, the Royal Opera House, the Guildhall Art Gallery, Keats House, London Museum, The Geffrye Museum and others, giving them an opportunity to see heritage at work and helping to promote the City of London and its cultural economy. The Patron is The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor of the City of London, together with distinguished Vice Patrons, Alderman Nick Anstee, a former Lord Mayor of London, The Rt Hon Frank Field MP, Sir Nicholas Kenyon, Sir Andrew Motion and others.

Online Video: https://youtu.be/m0q7I-6Ea8o

Geoffrey Bond was a founder Trustee of the Papplewick Pumping Station trust (1974) and former chairman. The Station is off Longdale Lane, Nr Ravenshead, Nottinghamshire and is one of Europe’s great industrial monuments. The Pumping Station built in 1884 is the finest surviving fresh water Victorian Pumping Station in the world still able to use its original Lancashire boilers to drive the engines. It is a veritable cathedral to water with its wonderful stained glass windows of water lilies and fishes of the local rivers and housing two magnificent beam engines built by James Watt & Co of the Soho Works, Birmingham. The building is also a schedule property and volunteers steam and run the engines on 8 occasions during the year, details through the website www.papplewickpumpingstation.org.uk for further information. The postal address is Rigg Lane, Ravenshead, Nottingham NG15 9AJ. Telephone Number: 01159 632938.

The Trust which was formed to save the unique Boulton & Watt beam engines is not only a tourist attraction but a source of education about water in the environment. Geoffrey created WET (Water Education Trust) to inform, young people in particular about the importance of water in the environment. After over 40 years’ service Geoffrey has now retired as a Trustee and is now Honorary President of the Trust.

In his capacity as the then President of the Newark & Nottinghamshire Agricultural Society County Show in 2016, Geoffrey Bond established this Scheme to promote Agricultural Engineering as a career for young people. He has worked with NUAST (Nottingham University Academy of Science & Technology), agricultural machinery manufacturers and suppliers to offer summer placements for students 14-17 years of age, which will enable them to gain valuable experience of the industry with the prospect of developing a fulfilling and rewarding career.

At a more formal level, apprenticeships are being created for those already with agricultural engineering companies age range 17-25 and who are attending day release at academic institutions who will have the possibility of receiving a bursary to assist them financially in their careers. This initiative has received enthusiastic support from stakeholders such as Riseholme College (Lincoln), Brooksby Melton College, Leicestershire, the Institution of Agricultural Engineers, Agri Machinery News and the Midlands Machinery Show. All these organisations confirm the increasingly technical nature of the farming industry and that more young people need to know that it offers great career opportunities.

Online Video: https://youtu.be/eOnPTifNJCk

With his strong connections with the country of Norway, Geoffrey Bond was the Honorary Consul for Norway for the whole of the Midlands for over 30 years, in October 2002 he created ‘The City of London Bridge Ward Club Norwegian Business Scholars Trust’ which has successfully brought over from the top Business School in Norway, the BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, to the Cass Business School, City University London, a top scholar to have a six week placement with a City institution and then the balance of the autumn term at Cass Business School before returning to Oslo.

Norwegian Business Scholars Trustees

CHAIRMAN
Geoffrey Bond OBE DL LLD (Hon) FSA,

The Lord Mountevans
Roma Bhowmick B.A.
Michael Cooper MA FCA

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT BI NORWEGIAN BUSINESS SCHOOL
Marius Eriksen

PRO-VICE CHANCELLOR CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON
Professor Costas Th Grammenos CBE DSc

Ex Officio The Norwegian Ambassador in London

Geoffrey Bond was the originator of a new engineering apprentice initiative by the Nottinghamshire Masons entitled ‘The Midland Masonic Education Partnership’ which is to help young students at colleges such as NUAST (Nottinghamshire University Academy of Science & Technology) to extend their engineering experience by, for example, being funded to visit Chinese engineering institutions to visit engineering companies in China.

Online Video: https://youtu.be/oqVdD6-FLM0

In 2012 Geoffrey Bond curated the biggest exhibition of its kind showing 850 years of some of the magnificent treasures of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The exhibition which took 2½ years to curate had some 164 treasures on display in the Guildhall Art Gallery owned by the City of London Corporation. The exhibition which ran from June to September was visited by HRH The Princess Royal and the exhibition attracted visitors from all over the world. The cartoon image on the front of the exhibition brochure depicts an Alderman of the City of London holding a traditional Loving Cup, still used on many occasions at City Livery Company banquets.

The exhibition attracted many young people, particularly from schools in the London area, and helped to explain the great work done by City Livery Companies in promoting education in general and apprenticeship in their trades in particular.

Geoffrey Bond is the Curator of the Charles Norman Collection of 18th century Derby porcelain believed to be the finest of its kind in the world and on permanent loan at the Usher Gallery, Museum of Lincoln. The first catalogue was published in 1996, the second edition in 2012 which gives very full descriptions and colour photographs of each object in the collection. Letitia Roberts, a New York based porcelain scholar said of the collection ‘No serious collector in any field ever loses sight of, rarity, quality and condition, all of which qualities the collection meets.’

The Collection is well used by schools to tell young people about the decorative arts in general and English porcelain in particular, how it is made and its decoration.

In 2016 Geoffrey Bond mounted a two day commemorative exhibition at Burgage Manor, to show how it was used during WW1 from 1915-1919 as a VAD hospital. The Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital provided a vital nursing facility for wounded soldiers, utilising the help of local men and women who volunteered as VAD nurses and orderlies. The event attracted people from all around the UK.

Geoffrey Bond has had a lifelong interest in stained glass and is a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass London. In 1998 he sponsored and paid for a catalogue raisonne of the Charles Eamer Kempe windows in Hucknall Church Nottinghamshire, one of the most comprehensive sets of Kempe windows. The catalogue was written by Adrian Barlow of Oxford, Hon Secretary of the Kempe Society.

In 2012, the Olympic year, Geoffrey thought of the idea and sponsored a catalogue raisonne of the windows of St Lawrency Jewry in the City of London, the first to be published of this important set of post war windows was created when the church was rebuilt after being destroyed on 29th December 1940. The craftsmen involved were Christopher Webb and Lawrence Lee. The introduction to the catalogue was written by Canon David Parrott, Guild Vicar of St Lawrence Jewry.’

Byron: The Image of the Poet’ Geoffrey Bond was one of the contributors to this important volume about the poet, other contributors being Germaine Greer, Dr Annette Peach, Dr Peter Cochran, Dr Bernard Beatty, the book being contributed to and edited by Dr Christine Kenyon-Jones of King’s College, University of London. He has also written for the Byron Journal, published by Liverpool University Press, most recently in Edition No. 2 for 2018 on the subject of collecting Byron Books.

In 2010 Geoffrey Bond wrote a paper published in The Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, the paper entitled ‘Byron at Burgage Manor 1803-1808’.

In 2012 he was the publisher for a unique bilingual edition of two famous poems by Lord Byron, ‘Parisina’ and ‘Darkness’ translated from the English into the French by the well known brilliant French scholar, Daniele Sarrat, for which she received high academic acclaim.

In addition to his recent book on the poet Byron and his love of animals, Geoffrey Bond has written other material on the poet including contributing to ‘Byron: The Image of the Poet’, edited by Dr Christine Kenyon-Jones, published 2010, authors including Germaine Greer. Geoffrey’s chapter being on ‘Byron Memorabilia’.

Lord Byron Best Friends
Byron. The very name conjures up an image of reckless romance, scandal, adventure, wild emotions, foreign lands, poetry and glamour. But dogs? It is not widely known that man’s best friend held a precious place in Byron’s affections. This book by renowned Byron enthusiast, Geoffrey Bond, sheds new light on the poet’s canine love affairs: from bulldogs to Boatswain and beyond. There are Newfoundlands, Mastiffs, Terriers, Greyhounds, and even a Poodle! Fabulously illustrated throughout, this book also features a colourful condensed biography of the poet.