Former head of Brighton College given knighthood

The former head of Brighton College has been given a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Anthony Seldon ran Brighton College from September 1997 until he joined Wellington College, another public school, in Berkshire, in January 2006.

He has written biographies of John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and, while he was at Brighton College, he wrote Brave New City: Brighton and Hove Past, Present, Future.

He described it as an analysis of the city of Brighton and Hove focused principally on its buildings.

Dr Seldon, 60, a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was knighted for services to education and modern political history.

Anthony Seldon

Nicholas Soames, the Conservative MP for Mid Sussex, one of the constituencies bordering Brighton and Hove, has also been knighted as a reward for political service.

Sir Nicholas lost his 91-year-old mother two weeks ago on Saturday 31 May. Mary Soames, also known as Lady Soames, was the last surving child of Sir Winston Churchill.

Others to be recognised in the honours list included civil servant Rob Linham, head of Council of Europe Human Rights Policy at the Ministry of Justice, who becomes an OBE.

Mr Linham, who grew up in Brighton and Hove before studying law at St John’s College, Oxford, was honoured for services to human rights policy.

Since joining the civil service he has moved back to Brighton and Hove where he enjoys watching cricket and describes himself as a recovering quizzer. He has twice appeared in the final of University Challenge on BBC television.

Another Oxford University graduate from Brighton, Sharmila Nebhrajani, has also been appointed an OBE, for services to medical research.

She joined the Association of Medical Research Charities as chief executive in November 2011 from NHS Sussex where she spent two years as the executive director for finance and consulting.

She graduated with a first-class honours degree in physiological sciences from St Anne’s College, Oxford, in 1988, trained as an accountant and worked as a management consultant.

And she spent 12 years at the BBC where she was chief operating officer of BBC Future Media and Technology.

Ms Nebhrajani has been a board member of the Charity Commission and the Royal Shakespeare Company and is a member of the general council of Sussex University.

A British Empire Medal – or BEM – has been awarded to Elaine Evans, of Reynolds Road, Hove, for services to the arts in East Sussex.

Mrs Evans is a Regency Patron of the Royal Pavilion a nd Museums Foundation and a member of Hove Civic Society. She also supports of the Actually Gay Men’s Chorus in Waterloo Street in Hove and also sits on the Brighton and Hove Commemorative Plaque Panel.