Nicholas Albery

Background

Albery, Nicholas was born on July 28, 1948 in St. Albans, United Kingdom. Son of Donald and Heather (Boys) Albery.

Education

Bachelor, N.E.L.P., 1985; diploma, Institute Psychotherapy and Social Studies, 1986.

Career

While a student at St John's College, Oxford, Albery became involved with psychedelic and spiritual movements in San Francisco, dropped out of college and joined the anti-university in London. He died in a car accident, on 3 June 2001. Underground London in the 1970s After a period in Haight Ashbury he returned to the UK and became involved with the newly started BIT Information Service, quickly becoming a driving force in the development of wider activities for BIT so that it became one of the first Social centres.

Around 1972-73, at the peak of its activities and with the momentum given by Nicholas, BIT Info-Service ran 24 hours a day, with "BIT-workers" coming up at around 10 PM to take the night shift until around 8:00 AM the following day. The "Windsor Festival case" Frestonia Nicholas was a Minister for the Free State of Frestonia in North Kensington and a Green Party candidate in Notting Hill. In 1985, out of BIT Information Service, he founded the Institute for Social Inventions.

From small beginnings (a network of inventors, a quarterly newsletter), the Institute grew into a full-fledged organisation under his leadership: producing an annual compendium, running social inventions workshops and promoting creative solutions around the world. The Global Ideas Bank, which he founded in 1995 as an offspring of the Institute for Social Inventions, was first established online, and new features were added: online submission, voting systems, categorisation, a message board, and so on. Promoting "natural" death In 1991, with Christianne Heal, they founded the Natural Death Centre, offering advice on DIY burials.

The much-patronised centre provides midwives for the dying, death exercises, recyclable coffins, etc. Nicholas Albery founded the self-organising Saturday Walkers' Club in the mid-1990s.

Works

• book

  • Creative Speculations: Compendium of Social Innovations by Albery, Nicholas

    (250 provocative ideas projects and speculations. 1997, 288pp)

  • The New Natural Death Handbook by Nicholas Albery (2000-04-13)
  • Time Out Book of Country Walks (Time Out Guides) by Nicholas Albery (1997-05-01)

Interests

• Avocations: learning a poem for every day of the year, walking with friends.

Connections

Married Josefine Speyer, May 19, 1991. 1 child, Merlyn.