FCPD Dino

Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Trustees and Management Board

View the current trustees and board

Past Board Members and Trustees

Our past board members and project partners have contributed significantly to the success of FCPD. Thanks to each and every one for their input!

Alison Smith trustee

Alison Smith

I was formerly project director of Jurassica, an attempt to recreate a vast immersive Mesozoic environment under a huge glass roof designed by Renzo Piano, aiming to engage the public with deep time and the big ideas of science past and present. I live in a house full of dinosaurs and rocks and wish I had been a geologist.

Instead, I am a cultural sector professional specialising in project management, business planning, and impact evaluation. I am also a doctoral researcher at Bournemouth University and am interested in public engagement in museums.

Charlotte Wightwick

I’ve lived in Crystal Palace for nearly 14 years. I have a passionate interest in history and love walking and spending time outdoors, so it is perhaps not surprising that I loved the Dinosaurs from the first time I saw them.

I’m fascinated by the history of the sculptures and how they represent a particular moment in the history of science, but perhaps more so I love the way that they’ve come to represent our local community – a symbol of our past (the Crystal Palace itself) – our present and our future (I love all the kids running around, roaring and telling people all about them!)

They can only be part of the future if we look after them now, though, which is why I volunteer with FCPD – we need to make sure that the Dinosaurs survive the next 170 years!

Chris Aldous

Dinosaurs dominated my childhood reading and viewing habits – from the creatures of Conan Doyle’s Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs Pellucidar/At the Earth’s Core, to the Savage Land of Marvel Comic’s Ka-Za and the wonderful stop-frame animated creations of Ray Harryhausen (The Valley Of Gwangi left an indelible mark with its mind-blowing combination of jerk-motion Triceratops and live action cowboys…). They fed endlessly into my imagination and stoked my creative appetite for realising the impossible… so there’s a nice sense of completion in that my most recent art project – Ghosts of Gone Birds – set about the task of breathing life back into all the extinct bird species we have lost over the last 250 years through the imaginative power of painters, sculptors, poets and writers. Art vs. Extinction seems a fairly worthy fight to undertake. And when I’m not curating the resurrection of Laughing Owls and Red-Moustached Fruit Doves, I like to dedicate my creative energies to any other cause-related communications project that seems to challenge the usual way of the world – like staging music festivals inside book stores, opening up empty art galleries or reinventing Peanuts for the C21st.

Francesca Canty

Francesca Canty

I’m delighted to be joining the trustees to help ensure generations more can enjoy our gorgeous dinosaurs, as I have throughout my life. 

No school holiday was complete without a visit to the dinosaurs, and as a proud Penge resident (formerly Sydenham, Bradford and Moscow), I have visited them daily throughout the pandemic. You know, just to check they’re okay… which the Meg suddenly wasn’t one morning. So here I am.

My day job is Chief Executive & Artistic Director of Bishopsgate Institute. Our archives celebrate neglected stories and anyone is welcome to access them. Before that, I worked on the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, ran the British Council’s arts programme across Russia and was executive DJ at Propaganda in Moscow. I’m also a proud trustee of the London Musical Theatre Orchestra, a keen (if irregular) ballroom and swing dancer, and a regular performer with Geoids Musical Theatre and Sedos.

Helena Stroud

I’m a local with a passion for all things dino-related, and the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs in particular. I’m an ultra-running enthusiast and spend half my waking hours plodding past our dinos in the park, as well as tipping my hat to their pals the sphinxes up the hill.

I first heard about the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs in The Usbourne Book of Ghosts, Monsters and Legends when I was a kid, and have been fascinated with them ever since. They’re not just utterly charming to see, but to me they represent the deep eccentricity of the British, and the have-a-go mentality of the Victorian era. Did Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen know exactly what iguanodons and megalosaurs looked like when they came up with the statues? No, but they gave it their best shot. Their Dinosaur statues are the spirit of the scientific method – the workings left behind for everyone to see even after the problem has been found to have a different solution.

I want our incredible Dinosaurs to be celebrated for the superstars of science that they are, and for the statues to be looked after and cherished for centuries to come.

Jenny Carrington-Elson

Jenny Carrington-Elson

A northerner at heart, I moved from elsewhere in South London to Penge in 2019 and immediately fell in love with the dinosaurs. I am constantly amazed when I think about how many others have looked up from those paths, and wondered about what the world was like before us.

During the workweek, I am a Managing Director for a startup focused on working with clients and organisations looking to address critical health inequality issues, here in the UK and around the world. I am a Communications Director by specialism, moving into health and science comms after starting life as a journalist. I’ve advised companies like Pfizer, the NHS, AstraZeneca, Women’s Aid, and Danone on how to achieve impact with their engagement.

I am looking forward to ensuring everyone is able to enjoy this fantastic heritage site now and for generations to come. Our understanding of science, art and history is the basis from which we form new ideas and challenge our assumptions. And… who doesn’t love a dinosaur?!

Joe Cain

I’m a university professor with expertise in the history of evolutionary biology and palaeontology. This includes Darwin and Darwinism. I’m fascinated with the period 1800-1850, when British geologists led the world in thinking about “deep time” – the idea that Earth has a long history, and fossils are bits from previous chapters in that history. This takes history far beyond science, into questions about the meaning and purpose of life on Earth. Indeed, the statues in Crystal Palace Park spoke to those questions as much as they illustrated some of the most exciting new discoveries of science in their day.

I’m a passionate advocate for the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. In my day job, I’m Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology at University College London and Head of Department for UCL’s Department of Science and Technology Studies.

I was a Crystal Palace local. The park and its cultural heritage are close to my heart. I’m delighted to do my bit to help conserve them and to promote thinking about the questions they raise.

www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/cain | [email protected]

Joe Sullivan

I am a museum education professional, currently working at The Grant Museum of Zoology and Brooklands Museum, and serving on the board of the London Museums Group. The reason I got into museums and heritage as a career is due to a genuine love of interpreting history and the view that you need to enjoy your job otherwise you’re wasting you time – a thought process that was initially stoked age 5 by Dinosaurs.

The first time I read about the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs was in a magazine in 1991 (appropriately called ‘Dinosaurs!‘), which featured cartoons about palaeontological history, including of course the Crystal Palace sculptures. Being a Londoner myself I found their nearby locality fascinating, as well as the window it gave me into scientific interpretation in the Victorian times. Fired by that same interest for well over a decade, I later worked at several dinosaur museums and exhibitions, gained qualifications in Prehistoric Archaeology and Museum Studies, and worked my way through the sector to the point where I can now help to actively contribute to the maintenance, interpretation and public enjoyment of the sculptures.

Karl Richter

I joined Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs because I want to make sure that our local community assets are properly looked after. I was also Chair of the Friends of Crystal Palace Subway, a related heritage project in Crystal Palace Park, and CEO of EngagedX, a company developing market infrastructure to unlock more socially motivated investment.

karlhrichter.com

Liesa Brierly

I am an objects conservator experienced with hands-on conservation of inorganic materials, conservation methodology and material science. I am looking forward to helping with their preservation, which should make for an interesting challenge! Living just round the corner from the dinosaurs I see them almost daily, yet cannot imagine ever tiring of them.

I have previously worked at the Natural History Museum, the British Museum and the Imperial War Museum and am currently a preventive conservator at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. From 2010 to 2012 I was on the committee of the Institute of Conservation’s Ceramics and Glass Conservation Group and since 2009 I have given two annual lectures to conservation students at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. I have also been lucky to work as an excavation conservator in Tell Brak, Syria with the McDonald Institute, University of Cambridge.

Examples of my previous conservation projects include the ‘Blaschka Glass Models’ at the Natural History Museum and the Neolithic Statues of ‘Ain Ghazal at the Institute of Archaeology.

[email protected]

Lois Olmstead

I am Communications and Web Coordinator for Autograph ABP.

Lynsey Rowe

I’m a senior arts administrator with over 15 years of working in the public sector including significant experience of funding and managing major arts Lottery-funded building projects as a key member of Arts Council England’s Capital team.  As such, I’ve worked closely with English Heritage, CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment), Heritage Lottery Fund, regional funding agencies and local authorities on a range of heritage and cultural capital projects.

I’ve lived in the Crystal Palace area – only metres from the Lower Lake area of the park – for the past eight years and the longer I live here, the more I love the place and the people.  Coincidentally, I also have links with Lyme Regis and the wonderful, dinosaur-centric Jurassic Coast through my family and being a trustee for a brilliant SW-based theatre company, Shanty Theatre.

So when I heard about the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, I was very excited to combine my interests, skills and enthusiasm and work with a hugely knowledgeable and talented team in the conservation and promotion of a major local cultural and historical asset – the CP dinosaurs!

Mark Carnall

I am the curator of the Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL and I have had a lifelong interest in palaeobiology and evolution. You can’t tell the history of evolution, science communication and palaeontology without the story of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs. In fact, you could argue that none of these disciplines would be as they are today were it not for the dinosaur court down at Crystal Place. Fortunately, these sculptures still exist so that the history of paleontological thought, with an emphasis on Britain’s contribution can be shown, not just taught. Because of their impressive stature and size it’s assumed that they are robust objects but at over 150 years of being on open display they need preserving and conserving as much as museum specimens. Seen today they may appear to hilarious outdated and old fashioned but these sculptures have more to tell us about the history, development and communication of science if you know where to look closely and carefully.

Pete Olson

Pete Olson

I am a biologist at the Natural History Museum in London where my group works on the evolution of parasitic worms through the study of their development, genomes and diversity. Although I’ve never specialised on dinosaurs, they have inspired me since childhood and were my first true fascination with the animal world outside of my immediate surroundings. Combined with an interest in the history of evolutionary thinking, a career at the NHM and a home in south London, the CP Dinosaurs are linked in some way to all parts of my life and I was delighted to join the Friends’ board in order to assist with their conservation efforts. The sculptures are a unique and important heritage asset worth preserving for future generations that provide not only a physical example of the very distant past, but also of Victorian natural science in its height of discovery. Through the Friends, I hope more people learn to appreciate the specialness of these installations and how they are linked to the Natural History Museum through its founder Richard Owen, to the British Empire through the spectacle of the Crystal Palace, and of course to palaeontology and the study of deep time.

Sarah Watters

Sarah Watters (Treasurer)

I’m a North London expat who relocated to SE19 in 2022, I had zero knowledge of the Dinos until moving here! That first summer I had a wonderful time at Dino Day and approached the volunteers to see if I could get involved as a way to learn about the sculptures and meet people in the area. The stars aligned, and with a theatrical puff of smoke I transformed into Treasurer and Trustee of FCPD! I am proud and excited to be part of this charity and to help protect the Dinos for generations to come.

I am a scientist by training specialising in viruses. Realising I was never going to win the Nobel Prize I moved away from the bench and into research management. I have experience of budget setting and management of high value grants and business cases (in the £millions). I know my way around an excel spreadsheet and love processes - hopefully the right set of skills to be treasurer!

In my spare time I can be found running around Crystal Palace Park or drinking too many coffees up on the Triangle. 

📮 Sign up to our email newsletter for Crystal Palace Dinosaur updates and events! 🦖