Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield KCB

Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield KCB (1962-63) was already in HM Civil Service when in 1962 he travelled with his wife and 18-month old baby for his Harkness fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. As a condition of the Fellowship, they spent several months afterwards travelling the states. For a man who at university took his studies extremely seriously and was extraordinarily well read, he got the California bug very quickly and was reputed - by him possibly - to have written the shortest paper in the history of the fellowship on The Role of the City Manager. His tutor Eugene Lee (Professor of Government at UCB) became a lifelong friend, godfather to one of Geoffrey’s children and host to family members visiting over many years. Geoffrey adored California, loved the lifestyle, the big outdoors and that feeling of freshness which had been so extraordinary coming from Britain in those years; although he had spent the war as a child in Canada, so it was not his first north American experience. On his return, he quickly rose in the civil service, becoming PS of the Department of Energy and then PS and CEO of the Property Services Agency. He was appointed KCB in the 1992. After retirement from the civil service, he led a review of the Royal Fines Arts Commission and served on the Boards of South West Water, and the University of Kent. He was also a trustee for the Harkness Fellows Association. Sir Geoffrey died in 2024.