Borough Market in London is today a thriving market and popular place to eat – George Nicholson, who has died aged 79, was chair of its board of trustees for 10 years until 2006, and, as such, contributed much to that success. He loved the place; he and I ate there together, as friends, on his last birthday.
George was proud of being a Londoner and his sense of civic pride and commitment to London continued all his life. In 1981 he was elected as the Labour member for Bermondsey of the Greater London council. He became chair of the GLC planning committee, advocating for Thames beaches, social housing, the best of urbanism and celebration of the possible.
George played a pivotal role in the purchase by Coin Street Community Builders in 1984 of a 13-acre derelict site on the South Bank that has since been developed into a thriving neighbourhood of homes, parks and gardens, shops and businesses, and a family and children’s centre. He served on its board until very recently.
He was born in Dulwich, in south London. His parents, Nancy (nee Martel) and Nick, were both teachers, and during the second world war moved the family out to Beacon Hill in Surrey. From Beacon Hill primary school, George progressed to the naval training ship school Mercury on the River Hamble in Hampshire.
He then joined the Blue Funnel shipping line in Liverpool as an apprentice, qualified as a ship’s engineer and made a first voyage to Shanghai. He never lost his love of the sea. After merchant navy experience, he returned to London in the early 1970s, and attended Borough Polytechnic (now South Bank University), obtaining a diploma in building services, heating and ventilation. He also joined the Labour party and became a community activist before being elected to the GLC.
George was a gifted photographer. Black and white was his speciality and featured strikingly in his 2005 publication Made in Southwark: A Photographic Celebration of the Hand, about local craftspeople, and The Borough Market Cook Books of 2005 and 2007.
George took every opportunity to trumpet the assets of his neighbourhood, from the gardens of Southwark Cathedral, which he helped tend while living nearby in Copperfield Street from the 1970s onwards, to the majesty of the Thames. But his interests were global; the market networks he established in France, where he enjoyed a home in Gez with his partner, Julia Smith, survive to this day; and the Kolkata waterfront park, opened in 1999 on the banks of the Ganges, is a testimony to partnerships with the West Bengal government developed in his role as chair of the London Rivers Association, 1987-2008.
George is survived by Julia (whom he met in 1981 in County Hall, where she worked for the Inner London Education Authority and as head of the office of the leader and deputy leader), and his sister, Ann.
