Blake Society Trustees 2026

Blake Society Trustees 2026

Blake Society Trustees 2026

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of The Blake Society will be held on Zoom on Wednesday 4 February 2026 at 7.30 PM (UK time).

The Annual General Meeting is an opportunity for us to update members and followers about the key events and work of the year. We will also report on accounts and the new ideas and campaigns that we will be taking forward in 2026 and into the bicentenary of Blake’s death 2027. 

This is also the meeting at which the Trustees of The Blake Society are formally appointed to serve for the year, so we thought it might be a good time to explain what we do and to reintroduce the current Trustees.

We’re a dedicated group of Trustees, who work together well and effectively; between us we have a wide range of knowledge, experience and interests and can pool all that expertise for the benefit of the Society. As Trustees, we have a legal duty to ensure that The Blake Society is in the best possible position to further its aims and objectives.

You can read the full detail of our constitution here.

Meet the 2026 Trustees

Sibylle Erle (Chair)

Where will the copier of nature, as it now is, find a civilized man, who has been accustomed to go naked?

Favourite Blake quotation: A Descriptive Catalogue, ‘Number V, The Ancient Britons’, pg. 50, E545

Favourite Blake image: For Children: The Gates of Paradise, copy A, pl. 1 (1793)

2025 has held many surprises for me, both in my private and professional lives. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes, and I am looking towards 2026 with confidence. We are working on printing VALA#5 (part 2) and have started conversations about publication projects for 2027. We are planning to do something special and will inform members as soon as we are ready. This year, I wasn’t able to come to Bunhill Fields and that was due to my teacher training course and a very tight schedule. And yet, combining university with school teaching has been very rewarding. It has taken me in the right direction, as I am settling into life back here in Germany. It’s been quite a year.

Dr Sibylle Erle (Chair), a philologist by training, studied in Marburg (Germany), Norwich (UK) and St. Petersburg (Russia). As an academic, she has published on Blake’s reception and Anglo-German relations in British Romanticism; as an educator, she seeks out challenging topics, such as death and monsters. Sibylle believes in Blake’s relevance and significance for other cultures. She is still writing a book on Blake, Tennyson and Swedenborg.

Tamsin Rosewell (Secretary)

What is now proved, was once only imagin’d.

Favourite Blake quotation: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pl. 8, l. 33, E36
– Chosen for its encapsulation of the complex relationship between progressive scientific knowledge and practice, and the power of the human imagination.

Favourite Blake image: The Reunion of the Soul & the Body from Blake’s illustrations to Blair’s The Grave (1805)
– The body springs from the grave to embrace the soul rushing to meet it. For me, even though this is an image about death, it somehow encapsulates absolute joy in life and the essence of love.

I’ve been a Trustee for three years. As an artist and illustrator as well as a writer, I was led to Blake first by his images, long before I found his words. As a trustee I like to find ways to encourage anyone who is curious to explore and enjoy Blake. Discovering Blake is not just about scholarship and study – it is about exploring his absolute freedom of creativity, and accepting his encouragement to dissent from established thought.

Tamsin Rosewell was a bookseller for 17 years and recently made the leap to work full-time as an illustrator and writer. She is a regular book industry panel speaker, as well as book and art prize judge. Tamsin has also worked in Parliament, as a broadcaster, a speech writer, and (many years ago) for Spitting Image. She is the author and presenter of radio documentary The Poet and the Prophet, a three part series about William Blake; and Apocalyse: The Idea of the End, a three part radio series about the history of the idea of the end of days – both written for and broadcast on Resonance FM. She co-authored the introduction to Tate Publishing’s new edition of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. As an illustrator, her novel with twice Carnegie medal-winning author, Berlie Doherty, The Seamaiden’s Odyssey, has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Illustration 2026.

Roger Burston (Treasurer)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

Favourite Blake quotation: Auguries of Innocence ll. 1-4, E490

Favourite Blake image: Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion, pl. 1, Copy MPI (c.1807-1832)

I have been a member of the Blake Society since March 2022, and 2025 was my first year as a Trustee and Treasurer. I am an international Human Resources professional with a background in Finance, now semi-retired, having worked in international development organisations in the UK, Asia and America. Having more time to enjoy the arts, I’ve taken particular interest in the works of William Blake. A Blake scholar and Blake Society Trustee introduced me to Blake and the more I heard, the more I became interested. I started watching the Society’s zoom meetings during Covid, attended the Bradford Literature Festival, visited the Cottage in Felpham, attended the Mike Westbrook concerts at Cadogan Hall and St James’s Church, and the gatherings at Bunhill Fields each August.

My first real engagement with English Literature, in my early teenage years in Devon, was a fascination with the works of Charles Dickens. His portrayal of 19th Century London was most influential in the desire to spend most of my adult life in this city. Reading the Ackroyd biography of Blake’s early life evokes the same image of London, and there is evidence that Dickens was influenced by Blake. What fascinates me is the unique way that he translated his thoughts into poetry, prose, art and printing – and the tragedy of his talent only being recognised after his death.

My role as Treasurer was somewhat frustrated by the problems experienced with updating the bank mandates which turned out to be quite a long, drawn-out affair. However, these were successfully amended mid-year and the role has run quite smoothly since. There is so much more for me to discover about William Blake and I look forward to further contributing to the Society over the coming year and beyond.

Matt Goddard

He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of Knowledge out

Favourite Blake quotation: Auguries of Innocence, ll. 95-96, E492

Favourite Blake image: The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun (1803-5)

My interest in William Blake has grown ever since I read English and Related Literature at the University of York, which featured all too little Romanticism (and even less Blake) for my liking, forcing me to embark on a rewarding journey of my own with England’s Prophet.

As a creative director based on the South Coast of England, I seek to bring the spirit of my cultural heroes to both film productions and the brands and companies I work with. It is an outlet that combines my experiences and my interests, without which, I may well spend all my time wrapped up in the visions of Blake, and my other major 19th-century inspiration, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

In recent years, since relocating from Blake’s Lambeth, I’ve increasingly endeavoured to support cultural organisations, including film festivals, community interest projects, and Sussex festivals, in promoting young and local creative talent.

Having been a member of the Blake Society since 2019, I joined as a Trustee in 2025. A hugely rewarding part of my membership of the committee has been reviewing and seeking to improve the technology behind the Society, with, I hope, a Blakean eye, in preparation for 2027’s momentous bicentenary. I look forward to continuing this work and contributing to the Society in a myriad of other ways over the coming year.

Matt Goddard is a creative director, illustrator and writer, who has written on culture in UK and international press for almost two decades. His current focus is film criticism, film production, and looking forward to the completion of several books.

Alan McDonagh

What it will be Questiond When the Sun rises do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea O no no I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look thro it & not with it.

Favourite Blake quotation: A Vision of the Last Judgment, page 95, E565-66
– I love this quote—eccentric spelling & punctuation included— from Blake’s 1810 Catalogue describing the design of A Vision of The Last Judgment, as it captures how Blake uses the power of his imagination to perceive the world, and how the act of perception itself becomes creation.

Favourite Blake image: Beatrice Addressing Dante from the Chariot (1824-27)
– Impossible to pick one image of Blake’s but love this almost psychedelic image of Blake’s illustration of a slightly sheepish Dante meeting Beatrice in Purgatorio.

As a trustee I hope to bring my enthusiasm for Blake and, more prosaically, my experience in back-office systems and processes to help with the Society’s preparations for Blake’s bicentenary.

Alan McDonagh is an experienced Human Resources professional, with a sideline in technology implementation. Alan is deeply passionate about music, literature, and the arts; and is looking forward to contributing to the work of the Blake Society as a trustee.

Camila Oliveira

He who would do good to another, must do it in Minute Particulars
General Good is the plea of the scoundrel hypocrite & flatterer
For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars
And not in generalizing Demonstrations of the Rational Power. 

Favourite Blake quotation: Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion, pl. 55, ll. 61-64, E205

Favourite Blake Image: Job and His Family Restored to Prosperity (Butts set) (c.1805-06)
– I see it as a heavenly rock and roll band… The one with musical instruments hanging in a tree behind Job’s family is also great, but I would stick to the one in which they actually play the instruments. Blake produced many illustrations suggesting the presence of music, and his illustrations for the Book of Job are some of the richest (and loudest).

As a Blake scholar and trustee of the Blake Society and Blake Cottage Trust, my main purpose is to highlight the importance of music in Blake’s work, which he regarded as one of the three powers in man of conversing with paradise, along with poetry and painting. I am fascinated by how musicians and composers have interpreted and perceived Blake’s intrinsic musicality, using his work (visual and poetic) as inspiration for their own creative endeavours. For this reason, I am particularly interested in promoting/mediating events and collaborations with musicians and artists. I am also part of the Blake Society initiative ‘Blake and Race’, which aims to shed light on the reception of Blake in different parts of the globe, as well as to promote debates on diversity and representation mediated by Blake’s work.

Camila Oliveira is a Junior Researcher Fellow at University of Lisbon, Trustee of the Blake Society and Blake Cottage Trust. She holds a PhD in English Literature from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/Kings College London (2021) and an MA in Music (2017). She specialised in interdisciplinary and multimedia studies articulating Music and Literature and is currently preparing a book on the reception of William Blake in popular music and translated Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant of Albion into Portuguese (2021).

Diane Pacitti

How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?

Favourite Blake quotation: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pl. 7, E35

Favourite Blake image: Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion, Copy E, pl. 2 (c. 1821)

As a Trustee, I bring my own journey as a writer, in which Blake has been a constant and challenging companion. I also bring my love of art, which I have expressed by curating exhibitions of the artworks of my late husband, Antonio Pacitti. I see the Blake Bicentenary as a huge opportunity, because many of Blake’s ideas and images are only now being understood, and are searingly relevant to the modern psyche and to our power structures. I have ideas as to how the Bicentenary might engage with those who have suffered oppression in its many forms, the natural heirs of Blake’s vision. I have already written in Emanations about correspondences between Blake’s sacred vision and that of indigenous peoples, and will chair a related event in May. I also see the possibility of presenting Blake’s response to the natural world in the context of climate catastrophe, and offering experiences of contemplation and encounter.

Diane Pacitti’s writings often explore power relationships and identity. They include Between Two States, an Italo Scots novel of migration and war, and Guantanamo, which juxtaposes her poems with Antonio Pacitti’s drawings. The collection Dark Angelic Mills was produced during a Poetry Residency in Bradford. She collaborates with a scientist and an artist in Earth Justice projects at St. James’s Church, Piccadilly, and is currently structuring her recent poetry into three collections, Divided, Wilderness and Ecozoic. These publications will reinterpret the Biblical mythology of fall, wilderness and transformation in terms of our relationship with the earth and cosmos.

John Riordan

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

Favourite Blake quotation (today): The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pl. 8, l. 31, E36

Favourite Blake image (today): Catherine Blake, (c. 1805)

– Amidst all the energetic, visionary busy-ness of Blake’s visual oeuvre, this tender pencil drawing of his wife, Catherine, stands out as a moment of industrious quietness.

One of the things that fascinates me about Blake is that he is neither a ‘words’ or a ‘pictures’ guy. He insists on combining the two in weird and wonderful ways, or perhaps he simply demonstrates the artificiality of the divide between the two. As someone raised on a diet of comic books his approach makes perfect sense to me. I also love the fact that this most radical and spiritual of artists was not a privileged, laudanum-addled fop but a working craftsman, attempting to make an honest living while relentlessly pursuing his vision. As I never tire of saying, Blake is for me the patron saint of freelance creatives.

I became a trustee of the Blake Society in 2020. Since then I’ve been particularly involved in building us a new, snazzy website, and promoting our activities on social media. I’ve served as Art Director for our journal, VALA, and I’ve organised a few of our online events, in particular interviews with authors John Higgs, Daisy Hay and Philip Hoare, print workshops with Michael Phillips and the zoom quiz, Blakety Blake, soon to return for a rerun. I’d like to carry on doing these sorts of things.

John is an illustrator and comic artist. He created the comic strip ‘William Blake, Taxi Driver’ for Time Out magazine and is serialising his graphic novel about William Blake at https://loshighway.substack.com/.

Lucy Valentine

Without contraries is no progression

Favourite Blake quotation: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pl. 3, E34

Favourite Blake Image: Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Copy F, pl. 2, (c. 1794)

My interest in William Blake began in my teenage years, with a beautiful 1920s sage green Everyman’s Library edition of The Poems and Prophecies of William Blake. Within that small volume I encountered a vast, multifaceted world and one that continues to draw me back through both study and in recreation. Its lines, at once simple and profound, and Blake’s wider body of work have followed me throughout my life. They have found their way into my own musical work, from recorded works of The Garden of Love to an ongoing musical project shaped by Visions of the Daughters of Albion, scheduled for formal recording in 2026. Blake’s poem The Crystal Cabinet also lends its name to my music label, established in 2022, which supports experimental and electroacoustic work by artists from across the globe.

I became a trustee in 2025 with a commitment to preserving and promoting the work of William Blake. The Blake Society feels like a world within a world, where artists, scholars, and devoted readers of Blake meet on equal ground. As a trustee I bring an appreciation for the arts and art history, alongside an independent, practice-led perspective shaped by long-term artistic research and work beyond institutional frameworks.

Lucy Valentine is an artist, musician, and silversmith based in the North East of England, and artistic director of the label The Crystal Cabinet. Her work has been broadcast on the BBC and presented at international film festivals. Known for experimental guitar practice and collaborations, her most recent multimedia project Vault of Heaven takes a distinct approach, using Mellotron soundbanks to engage with the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. The work has been exhibited nationally.

Jason Whittaker

I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Mans
I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create

Favourite Blake quotation: Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion, pl. 10, ll. 20-21, E153

Favourite Blake image: Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion, Copy E, pl. 25 (c.1821)

What I bring: ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἡμῖν ἡ πάλη πρὸς αἷμα καὶ σάρκα, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὰς ἀρχάς, πρὸς τὰς ἐξουσίας, πρὸς τοὺς κοσμοκράτορας τοῦ σκότους τούτου, πρὸς τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις (for all The Four Zoas fans out there). So, lots of pretentiousness, then. Oh, and tattoos. And some skills – which are constantly in flux.

Jason Whittaker is Professor of Communications at the University of Lincoln. He is the author of twenty books, dealing with a mixture of Blake studies, journalistic practice and the impact of new technologies. He is currently engaged in projects of digital goetia.