Peaches Golding

Peaches Golding was born Lois Patricia Hauser on 13 December 1953, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, US, one of two daughters of Charlie Brady Hauser[1] and his wife Lois Elizabeth Brown. Her father was an educator who won a settlement of $2000 from the Atlantic Greyhound Bus Company in 1947 after having been arrested for refusing to move to the back of a bus,[1] eight years before that of Rosa Parks. He had served in the US Army during World War II and later for two terms in the North Carolina General Assembly in the early 1980s.[1]

Golding was educated at Richard J. Reynolds High School, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she earned second place in a talent competition in 1970, performing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.[9] In 1971, she attended the prestigious Governor's School of North Carolina. She studied biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1976.[3]

After graduation Golding worked as a teacher at the University of Ibadan and Loyola College in Ibadan, Nigeria, West Africa.[6] In 1992 in Bristol, she established a marketing and communications business with clients including the Office for the Deputy Prime Minister, the Department for Education and Employment on its New Deal initiative, the Government Office for the South West, several Training and Enterprise Councils in the South West and Business Link.[8] She was employed by Business in the Community, both as a consultant and an employee, over a period of 17 years as Deputy Director of the Race for Opportunity campaign, Regional Director and Director of Special Projects.

She has served terms on a number of public bodies and private-sector organisations including Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust where she is Chair of the Charitable Funds Committee (2013–present), North Bristol NHS Trust (2004–10), GWR West (1992–2001), a member of the Ethnic Minority Business Forum (2004–06), the Home Office representative on the Avon & Somerset Police Authority (2000–08), governor of the University of the West of England (1992–2000), a non-executive director of ITV West and its predecessors (1997–2006), a member of the Ship's Advisory Council of the SS Great Britain (2010–present) and as a member of the General Chiropractic Council (1996–2004).[8]

In 2009, Golding was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to minority ethnic people in the South-West of England. In 2010, she was appointed High Sheriff of Bristol, the first black woman to be appointed by the Sovereign to this 1,000-year-old post[3] and the second only Black person to hold the office, the first being Nathaniel Wells, the son of a Welsh merchant and a Black slave, of Piercefield, Wales, in 1818. Golding was awarded an honorary degree of Master of Business Administration by the University of the West of England in 2010.[3] In 2017 she was appointed as the first black female Lord Lieutenant of Bristol.[10][4] In 2020, Golding was appointed Honorary Captain Royal Naval Reserve and awarded Commander of the Order of St John (CStJ).

Golding lives in Bristol with her husband Bob, a retired zoologist, former director of the Zoological Garden at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.[6][11] She currently works as Principal Consultant and Head of Sustainability for Moon Consulting Limited.[8]