Peaches Golding

Lois Patricia (Peaches) Golding OBE
Born	Lois Patricia Hauser (1953-12-13) December 13, 1953 Spartanburg, South Carolina
Other names	Peaches Golding
Education	Richard J. Reynolds High School, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Alma mater	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Occupation(s)	Marketing and sustainability consultant
Employer	Moon Consulting Limited
Title	High Sheriff of Bristol
Term	2010-2011
Predecessor	Timothy Lachlan Chambers
Successor	John Cottrell
Board member of	ITV West GWR West Avon & Somerset Police Authority University of the West of England North Bristol NHS Trust General Chiropractic Council SS Great Britain
Awards	Master of Business Administration, UWE 2010 OBE

Lois Patricia (Peaches) Golding, OBE, commonly known as Peaches Golding (born 1953) in 2010 became the first female Afro-American High Sheriff of Bristol, UK. She has served on a number of public bodies and private sector organisations, including as regional director of Business in the Community, North Bristol NHS Trust, GWR West, a member of the Ethnic Minority Business Forum, the Home Office representative on the Avon & Somerset Police Authority, governor of the University of the West of England, Regional Advisory Council for ITV West and as a member of the General Chiropractic Council. Since 2011 she has worked as a marketing consultant for Moon Consulting.

Biography

Peaches Golding was born Lois Patricia Golding on 13 December 1953, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, US, one of two daughters of Charlie Brady Hauser and his wife Lois Elizabeth Brown. Her father was a educator who won a settlement of $2000 from the Atlantic Greyhound Bus Company in 1947 after having been arrested for refusing to move to the back of a bus and 10 years before Rosa Parks. He had served in the US Army during World War II and later for two terms in the North Carolina General Assembly in the early 1980s. His daughter Lois was educated at Richard J. Reynolds High School, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she earned second place in a talent competition in 1970, performing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. She studied biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1976.

After graduation Golding worked as a teacher at the University of Ibadan and Loyola College in Ibadan, Nigeria, West Africa. In 1992 in Bristol, she established a marketing and communications business with clients including the Office for the Deputy Prime Minister, the Department for Education and Employment on its New Deal initiative, the Government Office for the South West, several Training and Enterprise Councils in the South West and Business Link. She was employed by Business in the Community, both as a consultant and an employee, over a period of 17 years as Deputy Director of the Race for Opportunity campaign, Regional Director and Director of Special Projects. She has served terms on a number of public bodies and private sector organisations including North Bristol NHS Trust (2004-2010), GWR West (1992-2001), a member of the Ethnic Minority Business Forum (2004-2006), the Home Office representative on the Avon & Somerset Police Authority (2000-2008), governor of the University of the West of England (1992-2000), a Non-Executive Director of ITV West and its predecessors (1997-2006), a member of the Ship's Advisory Council of the SS Great Britain (2010-present) and as a member of the General Chiropractic Council (1996-2004).

In 2009, Golding was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to minority ethnic people in the South West. In 2010, Golding was appointed High Sheriff of Bristol, the first black woman to be appointed by the Sovereign to this 1,000-year-old post and the second only Black person to hold the office, the first being Nathaniel Wells, the some of a Welsh merchant and a Black slave, of Piercefield, Wales in 1818. Golding was awarded an honorary degree of Master of Business Administration by the University of the West of England in 2010.

Golding lives in Bristol with her husband Bob (http://www.bobgolding.co.uk), a retired zoologist, former director of the Zoological Garden at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. She currently works as Principal Consultant and Head of Sustainability for Moon Consulting Limited.