Trustees
Alice & William Fox-Pitt
Joint Presidents of The Royal Bath & West of England Society
Alice Fox-Pitt is a former event rider and national hunt jockey and the only female rider to have ridden at both the Badminton Horse Trials and over the Grand National course. If you watch national hunt racing on television you will normally see Alice presenting the coverage.
William Fox-Pitt is a very accomplished event rider and has won at all the five different 5* events. He has won multiple medals including winning three Olympic medals together with medals at the World Equestrian Games and European Championships. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2018.
Catherine Look
Chairman
Catherine joined the Board in 2018 after being involved with the Society for many years. Her original involvement was through the Young Farmers’ Clubs.
Catherine became Board Chairman in August 2022 and is looking forward to working with the wider stakeholder group as the Society moves forwards after the pandemic.
Catherine is the Managing Director of her family business, which manages and develops park home estates and holiday parks across Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. Catherine was a “mature student” when she completed a degree in Business Management and she has a particular interest in customer service.
Her husband and one of their daughters are farmers on the Somerset Levels. Their older daughter is a trials agronomist.
David Cotton
Trustee
David is a Somerset dairy farmer and a Fellow of the Institute of Agricultural Management and the Royal Agricultural Societies. He has experience as Deputy Chairman of the Rural Payments Agency and on the Dairy Council of the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board.
David is a member of Council and Chairman of The Dairy Show at the Royal Bath and West of England Society.
Jenny Fenton
Trustee
Jenny Fenton joined the Trustee Board of the Royal Bath and West of England Society in 2024 and will take on the role of Treasurer in 2025. Jenny is a qualified accountant. She started her career at Legal & General Group Plc before moving into private equity. Jenny co-founded the investment advisory business Altius Associates Ltd in 1998, which was sold in 2018 to Mercer. Jenny recently returned to live in her grandparents house on the family farm in Somerset.
Venetia Leng
Trustee
Venetia grew up in Oxfordshire and Somerset.
She is a partner of C Hoare and Co bankers, looking after private customers many of whom are involved in agriculture and other rural businesses. She read economics at Cambridge and worked elsewhere in the City before joining Hoares in 1991.
Venetia was a founder trustee of local Somerset charity Key4Life and is currently a trustee of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust.
Venetia lives on a small farm in Somerset with her husband Hamish Leng and two children.
Sue Seager
Trustee
Sue spent her formative years in Dorset and went to school near Sherborne, returning to the West Country in 2013. Sue is currently the Estate Manager at The Newt in Somerset.
Sue is a keen light aircraft pilot, having piloted through parts of Southern Africa. Sue has also been involved in all things equestrian from a young age and is now a keen competitor at dressage.
Patrick Thomson
Trustee
Patrick Thomson is Chief Executive Officer for EMEA, J.P. Morgan Asset Management. He is Chair of the Board of the Investment Association, representing UK’s investment management industry, and a Member of the UK Government’s Treasury Task Force.
After graduating from Edinburgh University, Patrick served as an officer in the British Army for five years before joining JP Morgan in 1995 and has worked in Paris, Singapore and New York.
He lives on a farm in Somerset and is married to Anna Redwood, an artist, with five children. He has worked as a shepherd and is a novice beekeeper and cider-maker.
Rupert Uloth
Trustee
Rupert grew up in Hampshire and the Sudan.
He joined Country Life magazine in 1994, after six years in the Household Cavalry, appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of a comedy revue sometime in between.
Rupert currently lives in West Sussex with his wife, their children and a small menagerie, including a miniature poodle, Juno, several horses, 14 sheep, two saddleback pigs, two geese and five ducks.
Ted Allen
Trustee
Ted Allen joined the Trustee Board of the Royal Bath and West of England Society in 2023.
Born at Butleigh, near Glastonbury, Edward (Ted) Allen lives in the family home near Shepton Mallet with his Golden Retriever dog. His family has lived in the area for over 450 years. He has 2 married sons; Jonathan, an Airline Captain based at Gatwick (with two daughters) and Nigel, a stage and screen actor.
A former Chief Superintendent in the Avon & Somerset Police, Ted is Chair of Trustees and former President of the Mid Somerset Agricultural Show Society and a member of the PCC at his local church. A Deputy Lieutenant since 2009, he was appointed Vice Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset in January 2023.
Ellen Kingston
Trustee
Ellen joined the Trustee Board of the Royal Bath and West of England Society in 2022 , having been Chairman of the Food and Drink section of the Bath & West Show since 2019 following in her father and grandfather’s footsteps as Stewards at the Bath & West Show. Ellen’s background is in the food industry, and she now lives and works on the family farm in Dorset, transforming it from a Dairy farm to a mixed farm focussing on regenerative agricultural practices and agri-tourism.
Ann Louise McKaig
Trustee
Ann Louise McKaig joined the Trustee Board of the Royal Bath and West of England Society in 2024. She and her family moved to Somerset in 1989. After working in London she retrained as a teacher at Bath Spa University. Ann Louise then taught at a local primary school for 13 years, where she was also a governor. Ann Louise and her husband, who is also a member of the Bath & West Council, now run a small business from home. Ann Louise is involved with the Wells Festival of Literature, on the Education Committee, and is committed to broadening the horizons of young people, informing and educating them about the world around them.
