MASTER
Alderman Robert Howard
Robert Howard has been a Liveryman since 1994. He joined the Court of Common Council of the City of London in 2011 as a Councilman, in the seat of Senior Past Master Christine Cohen, before joining the Court of Aldermen in 2015.
At the Corporation he has served on a number of committees including Open Spaces, Policy & Resources, Planning & Transportation and the Education Board. He is the Lead Member for Environmental Education and Chair of Governors of the City of London School for Girls. He was a governor of Capel Manor College in Enfield for a decade.
He has worked in the City since 1993 at Charles Stanley & Co Limited, where he leads on regulatory policy and change.
Robert is married to Magdalen and has three daughters. They live in Hackney.
Upper Warden
David Balfour
David is a Chartered Accountant and spent most of his working life in the Dairy Industry. His last ten years were spent running The National Dairy Council, whose role was to promote and protect the Dairy Industry and its products, including acting for the whole dairy industry during the BSE crisis. He is perhaps the only Chartered Accountant to win an international marketing award.
He and Sue have lived in the same house in Gerrards Cross for nearly 50 years. He reckons that he has planted virtually everything in it. A keen golfer, he has been Captain, First Team Captain and Chairman of his golf club and organised the Livery’s annual golf event for 12 years.
He is the elder son of Past Master Dick Balfour, joining the Livery in 2005, with his younger brother, Michael, following a year later. His younger daughter, Catriona, is also a Liveryman; hopefully she will not be the last of the younger generation to be so.
Renter Warden
Bob Ivison
Robert ‘Bob’ Ivison joined the Livery in 2004 and was elected onto Court in 2019, joining the Education Committee. He has been in the horticultural industry for over 50 years, starting as an apprentice in the Royal Parks, to studying at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, through parks and green space management positions to running his own consultancy business until ‘retiring’ in 2017.
In 2003 he was made a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture and a Fellow of the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management. Currently he is on the Board of Trustees of the Canadian programme Communities in Bloom and is Chairman of their International Panel of Judges. He judges in North America, Asia, Europe, and the UK.
He is married to Teresa, and they spend as much time as possible with their children and grandchildren. In his spare time, he is Chairman of the Friends Group of his local park and a volunteer steward at the De Havilland Aircraft Museum.
Spadebearer
Jonathan Matheson
Jonathan was Head boy of his school and subsequently took two degrees in Economics at Cape Town University and an MA in the Economics of Finance and Investment at Exeter University. His career was equally split between stockbroking and fund management, and he was Head of Investment Marketing at Fidelity Investments Limited.
Jonathan has had a lifelong passion for plants and horticulture and attended a second level course at Capel Manor, Regent’s Park. He became a member of the Company in 2019 and a Liveryman in 2021. Shortly afterwards, he was elected to Court. His focus has been on Education, first as Head of Schools Outreach and, for the past year, as Chair of Education. He was a judge for ‘London in Bloom’ for many years and is currently a judge for ‘Flowers in the City’.
Jonathan’s main passions in life are horticulture and opera. He has travelled extensively to attend opera festivals, especially in Italy but also in Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Scotland, France and Sweden. He also has a strong interest in the decorative arts and has attended courses at the V&A, Christie’s Education and the Courtauld.
Clerk
Ollie Finn
The Clerk acts as Chief Executive, and is responsible for managing the Company office and supporting the Master, Wardens and Court. The current Clerk, Ollie Finn, began working for the Gardeners' Company in June 2023.