Members of the Guild who knew Jill Willows as a Yorkshire farmer, Nuffield Scholar and generous supporter of the Guild’s Charitable Trust will be saddened by her death.
She become a Friend of the Guild in 2013 during a long association with the agricultural industry in various roles.
Having originally graduated from Newcastle University with a Bsc Hons in agricultural marketing, Jill worked for RHM Agriculture and the Higgins potato merchanting group before returning to the 550-acre family dairy farm in 1980.
Her Nuffield Scholarship report Farmer attitudes to changing circumstances, was completed in 1991.
Jill became increasingly involved in a number of agricultural industry organisations, not least as a personal sponsor of Nuffield Scholars, including Caroline Stocks, a freelance Member of the Guild, who received the Jill Willow Award for a study How to Communicate with Farmers.
She was also a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society, a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Farmers, a trustee of Harper Adams University Development Trust, a committee member of The Farmers Club and chairman (in 1997) of the Oxford Farming Conference.
The Guild sends its condolences to Jill’s family and friends.