Hannah Taylor is an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs and Head of the Company Secretariat for EMEA, based out of their London office. Hannah has worked for Goldman Sachs for 10 years and has diverse Corporate Governance and Company Secretarial experience having also worked at Blackrock, Burberry, HSBC and One Housing, a London-based housing association.

Hannah’s background is in corporate governance, board effectiveness and corporate secretarial skills, and she is a qualified Company Secretary (ICSA). With much of her experience gained in high-profile investment and retail banks, Hannah has worked within a highly regulated environment for much of her career.

Hannah learned to ring as a child and on moving to London after university joined the band at Southwark Cathedral, one of the most active ringing societies in both London and the UK. In 2015 Hannah was elected to be the Ringing Master of Southwark Cathedral Society and led the appeal to rehang the bells of the Cathedral, which was completed in 2018. Hannah is now the Deputy Ringing Master at Southwark and continues to be an active member of the band.

Tim Bradley is a Chartered Surveyor working for the City of York Council as an Asset Manager. His working background includes property management and valuation. Tim learnt to ring in York and for nearly 40 years rang at York Minster. It was here that his love of Taylor bells was nurtured, both by ringing at the Minster – widely regarded as the finest ring of bells in the world – and by visiting many other towers.

Over his ringing career, Tim has had the opportunity to ring on many fine Taylor bells. He has also been involved in restoration and rehanging schemes for rings of bells in York. As a result, he became very interested in the technical side of bellfounding and bell hanging, particularly the products of the Loughborough Bellfoundry. Tim says, “Being appointed one of the Trustees of the Loughborough Bellfoundry has been a great honour for me, and I hope to be able to use my property background and qualifications, as well as my knowledge and love of Taylor bells, to contribute towards the project to restore the foundry buildings and infrastructure, as well as the ongoing responsibilities of the Trust.”

David Potter’s involvement with The Loughborough Bellfoundry dates back several decades during which he led various schemes that brought about the restoration of bells and bell ringing in the City of York. For this work he was awarded an M.B.E. by H M Queen Elizabeth II.

He has always admired the sound of Taylor bells and was part of the consortium that purchased the Foundry from the Administrators in 2009 when it was in financial difficulty. Since then he has been a member of the team that has set up The Loughborough Bellfoundry Trust and has seen Taylor’s trade successfully.

Andrew Slade was born in Enfield, Middlesex. He learned to handle a bell on the Gillet 8 at Cheshunt and to ring at Waltham Abbey on the Taylor 12. He was elected to the Society of College Youths of London in 1967, a society of which he celebrated 50 years membership in 2017.

Andrew is married with two children and is currently based in the North of England. He was Lecturer of Mathematics at Durham University for almost 20 years, then moved to become a Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at two other universities before moving to his current role as Deputy Vice Chancellor at Leeds Beckett University. He spent over 30 years as Tower Captain at Richmond, North Yorkshire where he also spent many happy hours performing at the Theatre Royal Richmond in over 60 plays.

Andrew’s claim to fame is that he taught Peter Davidson and others to ring bells for two of the BBC’s All Creatures Great and Small films. He currently rings with the Leeds Cathedral Band, to whom he is grateful for getting him back to serious ringing with a different surprise major method every week. Professor Slade still works with Leeds Beckett University at a very senior level. He hopes that this experience coupled with his bell ringing background can be of service to the Foundry at this interesting and exciting time.

Andrew Wilby is a founding Trustee and one of the three owners who vested the Bellfoundry buildings, archive, museum, and historic equipment in the Trust for posterity. He has a long history of service to the bell-ringing community, serving as Master of the Ancient Society of College Youths [the world’s premier ringing society] in 1978, as Secretary from 1981 to 1991, and as a Representative to the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers since 1978. His service there includes as Commercial Director of the Ringing World, as Chairman of the Public Relations Committee, and membership of several other committees, including the founding of the Tower Stewardship Committee.

In addition, Andrew has project-managed several major bell restoration schemes in the UK and overseas, including the Bells of Old Bailey Holborn, Trinity Wall Street in New York, and the Swan Tower in Perth, Western Australia. In 1974 he founded the National 12 Bell Contest. Since 1981 he has been a resident ringer in Towcester, Northants, where he led that restoration and augmentation project in 1989. Similarly, following the restoration of the bells of St Helen’s Lundy Island, he has been Ringing Master of the Lundy Island Society. Since 2012 and the restoration project for that church he has been Churchwarden.

Andrew was formerly Director of Logistics at Eurostar UK Ltd and subsequently served as an elected member of South Northamptonshire Council, becoming Chairman in 2012. He has been Chairman of John Taylor & Co., leading the revival of the company’s fortunes, since 2008.