the society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in March 2006. In 2015 he was awarded an Honorary Degree of Laws from Nottingham University. Away from the legal world, Martin also held many public appointments including being the first Chairman of the Trust Board of Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre between 1993 and 2000. While Chairman, he laid the foundation stone for the Ophthalmology building, which is now a world leading research institution. He was involved with the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust for fifty years, eventually becoming Chairman and doing the conveyancing of all the sites purchased by the trust. He was a governor for many schools throughout Nottinghamshire, including Nottingham High School for Girls, Djanoply City Technology College, and Toot Hill Comprehensive School in Bingham, where he was a ward councillor for Nottinghamshire County Council. Toot Hill School named their new Sixth Form Centre “The Suthers Building” in 2015. He was also Chairman of Rushcliffe Primary Care Trust, President of Nottinghamshire Valuation Tribunal, held positions on the committees of several parts of Nottingham University, and he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) in 1999. He became involved in local politics in Nottinghamshire in 1967 taking on various roles throughout his life. He was a very successful Lord Mayor of Nottingham in 1988/89 and was elected to Nottinghamshire County Council in 2000. He was the deputy leader of the Conservative group at the county council at the time of his death. He was a leading member of a political dining club, the Millbank Club, in the East Midlands for fifty years, serving as its chairman for the last twenty-one years. He had contacts with almost all
national politicians and arranged many top political speakers for the Millbank Club. Martin was awarded an OBE for political and public services in 1998. He also had a keen interest in ornithology and foreign travel. Martin met his future wife Pippa on a blind date, going to a Press Ball, and that was the start of a great partnership. They became engaged to be married on Martin’s one and only skiing trip, and Pippa long suspected that he was happier that she had told him he never had to try skiing again than he was that she accepted his marriage proposal. They were married for 26 years and became part of the Kegworth Players with Martin taking on various acting roles using his mimicry talents. Both he and Pippa were elected as Vice Presidents of the society. They were generous hosts at their house in Flintham, where they supported many environmental and wildlife issues. Martin died after a short illness, and is survived by Pippa and two step- children, Melinda and Bret. Philip Donald Vernon [1960-68] 13.10.1950 – 30.01.2017 Vernon was the architect to the Dulwich Estate and the College. Like his elder brother Chris, Philip came to the College from the Prep and their sister Lindy went to JAGS. At the College, Philip was in Raleigh and boxed for the school in 1965 and 1966. After leaving Dulwich he studied to become an architect and was proud to be the fourth generation of the Vernon architectural dynasty, which had practised in London continuously since 1903. He started Philip Vernon was born in Dulwich to Russell and Ruth Vernon and was the youngest of three children. Russell
at the University of Leeds and then the Central London Polytechnic. He then worked with several London architects’ practices before joining the Building Design Partnership, where he stayed for sixteen years. His particular interest and skill was in sensitively adapting historic buildings to modern use. His projects here included Whiteleys in Bayswater, a complex project to create a shopping centre out of a late 19th century building while keeping the street façade and much of the interior. He also worked on West Shambles Square in Manchester, and Paddington Basin in London. He joined his boyhood friend, Paul Davis, an Alleyn’s Old Boy, at Paul Davis and Partners in 1998 and soon assisted with the masterplan and first phase of construction in the redevelopment of the Duke of York Barracks, Chelsea, into Duke of York Square, including the first new public open space in Central London for more than a century. Philip moved to Montagu Square in 2001, becoming involved with the Marylebone Association where he chaired the Planning Committee with great skill and sensitivity. His last decade was plagued by ill-health and he endured multiple hospital stays but remained positive throughout. Inspired by David Hockney, he channelled his creativity into making elegant, colourful and inventive landscapes on his iPad, many from his house in Portland, overlooking Chesil Beach. He is survived by his wife Elisabeth, another architect, who continues to practice as Vernon Architects, and by their two daughters, Clare and Alison.
This obiturary is based on one publised in the Architect’s Journal.
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