Sir Richard Heaton announced as new Chair of Fitzwilliam Museum Syndicate

PRESS RELEASE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM - 1 July 2024
The museum is delighted to announce Sir Richard Heaton KCB, the Warden of Robinson College, University
of Cambridge, as the new Chair of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Syndicate. Sir Richard succeeds Catherine
Arnold OBE and will begin his appointment from October 2024.
Sir Richard Heaton has been Warden of Robinson College since October 2021, after a Civil Service career
focusing on justice and the constitution. He was Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice from 2015
to 2020; before that, he was Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office.
Sir Richard is Chair of Trustees at Koestler Arts, which promotes rehabilitation through art in prisons and
other places of detention and is also Chair of the Advisory Committee on the Government Art Collection.
He collects contemporary and twentieth-century paintings, drawings and ceramics.
Catherine Arnold OBE joined the Fitzwilliam in October 2021, overseeing the reorganisation of the
Fitzwilliam and a new mission. During her tenure the museum has welcomed its highest visitor figures on
record.
Sir Richard Heaton said:
“I’ve always loved and admired the Fitzwilliam, and I’m delighted to be joining it as Chair of the Syndics.”
Luke Syson, Director and Marlay curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum said:
“I am enormously grateful to Catherine Arnold for her rigour and good humour over the past three years,
with change afoot at the Fitzwilliam. And I am really delighted that Richard will take over as the new Chair
of our Syndicate. His depth of experience and his love of art will be enormously helpful as we make the
Fitzwilliam Museum not just more and more vibrant but also financially and environmentally sustainable.
The Fitz has a big part to play in making connections across Cambridge’s communities to the rest of world.
With Richard’s energy and eye for detail, I’m sure we will make real strides towards realising our huge
potential. I much look forward to working with him.”
The Fitzwilliam is a Non‐School Institution of the University of Cambridge, overseen by the University’s
General Board and governed by the Fitzwilliam Museum Syndicate, a General Board committee.
For further enquires please contact the Fitzwilliam Museum Press Office:
press@fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
Notes to Editors
The Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum was founded in 1816 ‘for the increase of learning’. We care for works of art and
material culture from Europe, Egypt and Asia of exceptional international importance, works that connect
people across cultures and time. The Fitzwilliam has long been both a great public cultural asset and an
extraordinary scholarly resource – local, regional, national and global. The Museum’s historical and
modern buildings house over half a million works of art spanning centuries and civilisations within a
collection, including antiquities, money and medals, paintings and graphic arts, decorative arts,
manuscripts, rare books and archives, from Prehistory to the present. The Museum’s conservation centre,
the Hamilton Kerr Institute (HKI) is one of the world’s leading centres for teaching and research in the
conservation of easel paintings. www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
Photo: Sir Richard Heaton KCB, artwork: Peter Jones, 1940-2023
