Simon Carpenter

Doctor of Science

Tuesday 14 July 2026 - Orator: Professor Mike Benton

Vice-Chancellor, today we honour a Renaissance person, someone who excels in many different fields. Our honouree trained as a graphic artist, worked as a health professional, and made significant contributions to natural history and especially to palaeontology in his spare time. We honour his commitment to sharing his discoveries, knowledge and enthusiasm for our regional geology with citizens of Bristol and surrounding areas, and with our students through project work.

The University of Bristol has always had a significant civic role, as we are especially aware during this 150th anniversary year of the foundation of University College, Bristol in 1876. On the first day of term 150 years ago, initial lectures were delivered in all the various subject areas, and we are proud that geology was among these.

That first lecture about geology was delivered by Edward Tawney, Curator at Bristol City Museum, and we are delighted that today’s honorary degree goes to someone who keeps those connections very much alive.

Simon Carpenter grew up in Saltford, near Bristol, and recalls being fascinated by natural history as a child. He dug up fossils in the garden and wandered into the woods nearby to look for moths, birds, and fossils. One day he found a badger sett and crawled in – as small boys do. Fortunately, he was not chased off by enraged badgers but spotted some rock full of tiny fossil shark’s teeth.

Some years later, Simon took a team of six of us to the same badger sett, long abandoned. The woods around the sett are at the edge of the Saltford Golf Club and, having sought permission, we turned up in a car and a van. Simon unloaded wheelbarrows and digging equipment, and we trekked across the green, all dressed in rough clothing and shouldering picks and shovels.

We could hear the sucking of teeth by golf club members, but on we pressed.

We dug out a few sacks of bone-rich sediment and took it back to the University, where the students washed away the sand and mud to reveal thousands of little teeth and scales. These allowed our students to identify a variety of bony fishes, sharks, and small marine reptiles that lived in the Rhaetian seas that lapped around the Mendips and the hills of South Wales over 200 million years ago. The students, with our help, wrote a scientific paper and learned a great number of professional skills in the process.

This is an example of wonderful collaboration, all set in motion through the enthusiasm of a schoolboy a number of years ago.

Simon Carpenter studied for degrees in graphic design in Liverpool and London, and an art job at the Royal Free Hospital in London set him on his lifelong career as a Health Promotion Specialist. He is a keen cyclist, and of course cycling is good for the health, so he made connections in the early history of Sustrans, the famous Bristol-based charity that opens long cycle routes around the country. Their first major project was the Bristol and Bath Railway Path, opened in 2007. Simon was asked to provide natural history enhancements, and he bid for funding to put up a number of geology boards along the route to explain the rocks and fossils to be seen. About 3 million people cycle this route each year, meaning about 100 million people have seen Simon’s geology boards.

If you visit hospitals in Bristol and Somerset, many have cycling centres, and these emerged through Simon’s endeavours. Many agencies now encourage cycling for commuting and for pleasure, including the University of Bristol.

Simon’s motivation in his paid NHS job and in all his voluntary endeavours for Sustrans, the Bristol Naturalists Society, Bristol City Museum, and numerous other charities, is the wonder of nature and his wish to share this. Coupling natural history with good health through cycling seems a perfect partnership. It all started through the wonder of a child at finding the beautiful fossils of long-dead animals in his garden and woods nearby.

Today, this passion has led to wonderful achievements in sharing science engagement with the public through countryside locations and museums, and stimulating generations of students through excavations and laboratory work.

Simon Carpenter has been honoured by awards from the Geological Society of London and the Geologists’ Association, and now it is now our pleasure and privilege to present him as a worthy candidate for the award from Bristol.

Vice-Chancellor, I present to you Simon Charles Carpenter as eminently worthy of the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa.