Our Trustees

Sir Jonathan Bate is Regents Professor of Literature and Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities at Arizona State University and Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, where he was formerly Provost. A Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, he was knighted for services to literary scholarship and has a CBE for services to higher education. Among his 20 books are Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition, The Song of the Earth, and Radical Wordsworth: The Poet who changed the World, winner of a Lakeland Book Award. He chairs the Hawthornden Foundation, supporting contemporary writers. Sir Jonathan has been Chair since 2026.

Gesa has held a number of senior finance positions at FTSE 100 companies, including AstraZeneca and Pearson. She is also a former Trustee of the Printing Charity, where she served as an Honorary Treasurer, Trustee and member of the Investment Committee. Gesa joined the board in 2019 and she chairs the Finance Committee.

Clare practised law first at Mishcon de Reya Solicitors and then as in-house counsel for Gucci Group (now Kering).  She was General Counsel of the fashion house, Alexander McQueen, for many years. She has an LLM in Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law and an MA in English Literature. She lives in the Lake District.  Clare joined the Board in 2025.

Simon is Professor of Romantic Studies in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, a Trustee of the Ruskin Foundation, and Co-Director of the Wordsworth Centre at Lancaster University. His book Romanticism and Mountaineering: The Literary Cultures of Climbing, 1770-1837 was published in 2020. Simon joined the board in 2019.

Donna is Professor of Critical Cultural Studies at Northumbria University in Newcastle.  She previously worked in the tourism public sector and has been an academic in higher education for more than 20 years.  She is currently an Associate Editor for the journal Annals of Tourism Research and was a Managing Editor of the journal Leisure Studies.  Outside of academia she is a Trustee of the Sunderland Empire Theatre Trust and a non-Executive Director (Equality & Diversity) of Newcastle Creates.  Donna joined the Board in 2023.

Amy is Senior Curator, Historic British Art at Tate. She is a specialist in Romantic art and the history of watercolour and gained her doctorate on urban landscape imagery in the Romantic period from the University of Nottingham in 2018. Before she joined Tate in 2012, she worked at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. She started her career as a Trainee at Wordsworth Grasmere in 2006, going on to become Exhibitions Officer from 2007 to 2009. Amy joined the board in 2022.

Rishi has parallel careers as a brand strategist and copywriter, and a poet. In the former, he has worked for a wide number of brands including O2, and has twice served as a jury member for the D&AD Awards. In the latter, a poem from his third collection Neptune’s Projects (Nine Arches Press) was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is a regular poetry reviewer for The Guardian, and is currently also chair of Wasafiri, the magazine for international creative and critical writing. Rishi joined the Board in 2025.

Paul has been a local GP since 1995, and he is a Trustee of the Kelsick Trust in Ambleside. He is a member of a street theatre company and local amateur dramatics groups. He has been involved in the creation of film projects and audio recordings for the Wordsworth Trust, and in public poetry readings at Wordsworth Grasmere. Paul joined the board in 2022.

David is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he served as Librarian between 1986 and 2015. He is Emeritus Professor of Historical Bibliography at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Academic Publishing Committee of Cambridge University Press, a Fellow of the British Academy, and Chair of the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust. David joined the board in 2019.

Tim’s leadership roles have included Chief Executive of the Anne Frank Trust UK, Director of the Royal Society of Literature, Chief Executive of the Koestler Trust for arts by prisoners, Chair of Governors at Regent High School in Camden, and co-editor of Magma poetry magazine.  Tim lives in Coniston; he joined the board in 2022 and chairs its Nominations Committee.

Dr Alex Whitfield is Head of Learning and Participation at the British Library, leading a team that supports learners of all ages to engage with and benefit from the Library’s unique collection through a programme that is delivered onsite, in our local communities of London and Leeds, and online. Her PhD, completed in 2011, explored the ethics surrounding the display and interpretation of sacred, devotional object online. Alex joined the Board in 2025.

Anne recently retired as Director of Strategy and Innovation for the National Lottery Heritage Fund, where she led on strategy, research data and insight, innovation, and social investment. She also led the Fund’s resilience and philanthropy policy for many years, and was Director of the Catalyst programmes focused on developing fundraising capacity in the heritage sector. Before joining the Fund, she worked in fundraising and publishing at the British Library. She has a BA Hons in English Literature and is a Master of Business Administration.  Anne is currently also a voluntary trustee of Jane Austen’s House Trust. She joined the board in 2022.