Rebels with a cause: standing on the shoulders of giants

Pictured: Shelia Heywood presenting a cheque on behalf of Nationwide to Buxton Mountain Rescue in 1989

As I canvass for nominations to support my own candidacy to stand for election as a Director of the Nationwide building society – I am naturally drawn to research those that have attempted this before.

Finding information on the who, when and why has proven an interesting research project.  The online mutual society register maintained by the FCA has some big gaps in its records – I have requested that more are digitised.  The society doesn’t maintain a large online archive of AGM results and minutes, annual reports etc. Few online news archives go back before the year 2000 (before the internet went mainstream).

[I’ve now been able to fill a gap in my research that picks up from where Michael Cassell’s book “100 years of Nationwide” leaves off and recent records (mostly online) begin – the society’s own records have been useful: election of directors, resolutions and results.]

Since 1980, I have only identified three candidates who were successfully elected to the board after receiving the requisite member nominations:

• Paul Twyman – elected to the board of the Anglia building society after several attempts and considerable activism. He served on the Anglia board from 1982, joining the Nationwide board at the merger in 1987 and continued serving until ~2002.
• Sheila Heywood – elected after several attempts, who served on the Nationwide board 1988 until ~1997. She was one of the first female directors of the society.
• David English – a former Nationwide manager who was made redundant the year before and I believe was elected at the first attempt. He served on the Nationwide board 1993 to 2002.

Note that all three served at the same time for a period from 1993 until 1997.

I have also identified several candidates that secured sufficient nominations to be entered on the ballot at AGMs but did not receive sufficient votes to be elected. This list is in chronological order for those known to have been nominated from 1979 until today.

• Paul Battley (1966-1987) – MEN article makes reference to 1983 being his 17th attempt
• Terence Johnson (1979-82) – may have started earlier – records provided by the society commence in 1979.
• Francis Hope (1980-82)
• Jessie Hope (1981)
• Sheila Heywood (1981-87) – successful in 1988 at her 8th attempt
• Christopher Punt (1982-86)
• Walter Berry (1983)
• Barry Selwood (1985)
• David Baldwinson (1985)
• Kenneth Joy (1986-91)
• Charles Neal (1989)
• Huw Lloyd-Williams (1990)
• Vivian Singh (1992-93)
• Ben Jacobs (1992-96)
• Robert Leng (1993-96)
• Trevor Harvey (1994-95)
• Andrew Martin (1997)
• Frank Lauder (1997)
• George Jones (1997)
• Julia Trewhella (1997)
• Michael Hardern (1997-98)
• Andrew Muir (1998, 2001-02)*
• Alan Debenham (1999-2005)*
• Tim Tanner (2002-03)*

*Note that as of the 2000 AGM, the required number of nominations was raised from 50 to 250 – a 5x increase brought about by a statutory instrument that amended the Building Societies Act in response to the “carpet bagging” threat of demutualisation.

[Updated 22-Mar-2026 following receipt of election records from 1979-2024 raised from the society’s archives.]