My friend Richard Stanwell, who has died aged 83, had a prodigious capacity for thoughtful administration that was valued by all his employers.
From 1978 onwards, Richard worked for the Council for Education and Training of Health Visitors, then from 1983 as senior administrative officer and council services manager at the Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (now known as the Nursing and Midwifery Council).
Richard’s ability to manage institutional change and embed strong governance earned him an MBE on his retirement in 2002.
The son of Phyllis (nee Cook) and Hubert Stanwell, Richard was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, where his family owned a butcher’s shop. He was educated at Boston grammar school and then Leeds University, where he read German and French, spending some time at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
Richard’s working life started with administrative posts in universities and colleges of education in the UK before he travelled to Australia to work as an administrative officer at Canberra College of Advanced Education. He returned home four years later to take up his first post with the Council for Education and Training of Health Visitors. He lived in Somers Town, north London, from 1978 to 1996 before moving to St Albans in Hertfordshire, where he remained until his death.
Since his schooldays Richard had felt not fully accepted for who he was. From the early 1970s he was involved in the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and Gay Liberation. Chairing a meeting at the Conway Hall in London, he managed – he claimed uniquely – to get the loquacious Brian Sewell to shut up.
Football played a large part in Richard’s life, and over the years he was a Leeds, QPR and Burnley supporter. However, his greatest interest was reserved for non-league football, as he followed first Boston United and then, once he had moved to Hertfordshire, St Albans City.
A devout Anglo-Catholic, Richard railed at the failure of the Church of England to be inclusive and regularly wrote trenchant letters to senior clerics. He was unflinching in his liberalism and was overjoyed when St Albans elected a Liberal Democrat MP for the first time in its history in 2019.
When infirmity eventually restricted his ability to move around, he used social media to keep in touch with the issues of the day and, above all, to be in contact with his wide circle of friends.
Richard is survived by his brother, Robert, two half-brothers, John and Gary, and three half-sisters, Margaret, Carol and Eliza.
