A short history from Angus Soutar (further permaculture history items are lower down the page).
In the "olden days" (the late 1980's and the ealy 1990's), practitioners would parcel up their work and send it to Bill Mollison in Australia, with the expected result that the world's postal service would deliver a diploma certificate in due course. But, once we had a group of competent practitioners in place in Britain, Bill granted them the status to award diplomas (see early documents).
As "second generation" to that initial group, I presented for my diploma in 1997 with a design portfolio covering seven years of my project work. The only support that I had was the documentation about accreditation from the new Permaculture Academy (Britain), published in that year.
The Bradford Permaculture network organised local accreditation events in Bradford, possibly the first time in a community setting. On three separate occasions, Mark Fisher, Krysia Soutar and I presented at the 1 in 12 club in Central Bradford. Jamie Saunders was the diploma-holder who presided, piloting the event design at we are now familiar with.
In 1998 Andy Langford, a member of the initial diploma group, and a former chair of the Permaculture Association, invited me to help with the diploma under the umbrella of the Permaculture Academy and I willingly apprenticed myself to him, as he was taking the lead role with the Permaculture Academy.
A year later, Andy asked me to work with him an Chris Dixon take on responsibility for developing the diploma apprentice support system in distinct areas of Britain from a standing start” according to the new designs. I accepted the role of co-ordinating development of the system in the northern part of the country, which included Scotland.
The Academy asked the Permaculture Association (Britain) - the PAB - to form a delivery partnership whereby the PAB would register students, keep records and manage the funds in a “ring fenced” bank account. The Academy would deliver the support services to diploma apprentices. This formal partnership was established in 2000.
Around this time, Carolyn Hall was recruited to help with administration and development, and she was responsible for pulling together much of the early documention.
In 2007 Andy Langford left for the Americas to found the Gaia University, which had its roots in much of the development work that he did for the diploma in Britain. He effectively took the Academy with him.
By this time, our northern region was coherent and self-contained. We were developing the delivery systems along the lines of the Academy guidelines of the original 1999 design. We published a regional strategy document in 2008 which demonstrated the progress we had made, and the direction in which we were travelling.
In 2010 the PAB informed us that they would no longer be supporting our activities, and that they preferred to take delivery and accreditation “in house” for themselves. So we had to make alternative arrangements This led to the founding of the North Britain Permaculture Institute to formalise the accreditation work of the former Academy, and the establishment of the Northern School of Permaculture to further develop our support system for our diploma apprentices, along the lines of the Academy's original strategy. Our work continues.
Angus Soutar, 2012
The Institute was helped into existence by the report "Permaculture Diploma in North Britain" produced in 2008.
Our earliest documentation of the process is the minutes of the Teachers' meeting at Bristol in February 1992, written up by George Sobol.
As they disappear, it is worth recording some of the subsequent careers of those who attended this pioneering meeting.
A statement from Graham Bell (? - 2023)
"I have been teaching Permaculture since 1989 and was awarded the Permaculture Community Service Award in 1990 after taking over Permaculture Magazine for two years. At that time I was a member of the Permaculture Council and helped build the early foundations of what we now have as an Association.
I have done much to help Andy Goldring in his endeavours to build the Association since without formally being a member of the Trustees. I have written two books on Permaculture: The Permaculture Way and the Permaculture Garden (and numerous articles)which were intended as interpreting Permaculture principles in an easily digestible way for people in a European culture and (obviously) in the northern hemisphere.
I have taught permaculture on four continents over twenty five years. England, France , Iceland, Israel, Ireland, Scotland, Slovenia, West Africa (Gambia, Senegal, Guinea) have all seen full courses whilst we have also taught shorter sessions in Denmark, Germany, Palestine, Spain and also done stuff in Holland, Malta, USA.
I spent most of the time in the early 2000’s trying to connect business media and politicians with the essential ideas behind Permaculture without ever using the word and am friends with many senior politicians and journalists.
I was the lead instructor for the countryside premium scheme for LANTRA(formerly the Agriculture Training Board) in the 1990’s and became a trainer of trainers for them. I have City & Guilds qualifications as a trainer and assessor.
I have returned to teaching Permaculture Design Courses in the last couple of years as I feel my copious experience should be shared and I wish to help a new generation of teachers achieve credible levels of skill and experience. With my wife Nancy our twenty three year old Forest Garden is an inspiration to many. Our courses are legendary at Garden Cottage with food from the garden, inspiring conversations and uplifting experiences. We feel we can support theory with practice as few can."
Patrick Whitefield (1949 - 2015)
Patrick Whitefield - an obituary from "The Last Word", BBC Radio 4