New Members appointed to the Board of the British Library

Richard Blakeway

Appointed from 01 July 2022 until 30 June 2026

Richard has been the Housing Ombudsman since 2019.  The service provides free, independent and impartial dispute resolution between residents and member landlords, and promotes positive change in the housing sector.  He also chairs the Ombudsman Association.

Richard has extensive experience in the housing and regeneration sectors, with previous roles including Deputy Mayor of London for Housing, Land and Property, serving on the board of the regeneration agency, Homes England, and on the governing board of the Chartered Institute of Housing. He has been an election observer in Somaliland and Ukraine and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Mary Hockaday

Appointed from 01 September 2022 until 31 August 2026

Mary is Master-Elect/Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. She left the BBC after a long career in News.In 2021 she was Director of BBC World Service, overseeing more than forty language services. For several years she was Controller BBC World Service English, looking after the BBC’s radio and digital audio services in English for audiences around the world, growing the audience and developing a wide range of award-winning programmes and podcasts. Her previous role was as Head of the BBC Newsroom, overseeing the BBC’s flagship daily television and radio news bulletins and the BBC news website. She held various other roles in the BBC.

She lived in Prague in the early 1990s as a correspondent for the BBC and The Independent and is the author of Kafka, Love and Courage – a biography of Milena Jesenska.  She studied English at Cambridge and then Journalism at New York University on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Mary is a Lay Trustee with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, an independent NED with the ICAEW and a Board Member with a small social enterprise, Climate Alliance.

Tom Holland

Appointed from 01 November 2022 until 31 October 2026

Tom Holland is a historian and broadcaster. He specialises in ancient and early medieval history. His most recent book, Dominion, traced the evolution of Christianity’s influence on the world from antiquity to the present day. He has made documentaries for both the BBC and Channel 4, and is the presenter of the podcast, The Rest Is History. He has served as chair of both the Society of Authors and the PLR Advisory Committee. He has been described by The Times as “a leading English cricketer”.

British Library Board Members are remunerated at £9130 per annum. These appointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Richard Blakeway, Mary Hockaday and Tom Holland have declared no activity.