Sidney Cooper Arts Trust
Setting up a new Arts Centre for Canterbury
The Sidney Cooper Arts Trust was formed in November 2025 (Charity Commission Number xxxxxx). The Trust was set up by the Sidney Cooper Research Group which originally formed in 2023 with a view to saving the gallery and reopening it as an Arts Centre for the people of Canterbury.
Who we are
The Trust founding members are Sandra Matthews-Marsh MBE, Chair, Robyn Griffith-Jones, Alison Coles and Carole Wells.
This group will be supported by additional Trustees drawn from Canterbury’s business and art community. Our retained professional advisors are Girlings, Burgess Hodgson and Pillory Barn.
We are supported by many people in the city and from afar including Cooper’s descendants, financial supporters and Rosie Duffield MP.
Trust founding members
Sandra has had a 35-year career in the public and private sector specialising in the visitor economy, destination management, heritage and creating and developing public/private sector partnerships. She began her career in local government, then for Tourism South East and then went on to lead the team at Leeds Castle. After Leeds Castle she led the award-winning destination management organisation Visit Kent; a partnership spanning 200 large businesses and 3000 SMES. She served as a Trustee of The Historic Dockyard Chatham for 10 years, leading on safeguarding, Arts Council projects, tourism and marketing.
She was awarded the MBE in 2015 and an Honorary PhD from Canterbury Christchurch University in 2017. She has experience in oversight and budget build for budgets between £2 and £8m in not for profit and Charity settings, contracting consultancies for marketing, PR, legal, arts, finance (accounting and audit) small scale capital projects. Sandra lives in Canterbury.
Robyn has a 35-year career at a senior level in tourism and leisure communications, marketing management and policy development. She began her career as a journalist with Reed International and The Economist Group before moving into senior marketing roles with British Airways, Cunard Line, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the English Tourist Board. Establishing her own consultancy in destination marketing and leisure planning, she delivered contracts and campaigns for clients such as the Environment Agency and the London Development Agency, and developing particular expertise in accessible tourism with clients such as Visit England and Visit Scotland.
She also worked as a Senior Lecturer in Tourism Marketing at London South Bank University Business School and, following her recent move to Canterbury, was lecturing part time at Canterbury Christ Church University Business School. Robyn is a Trustee of the national charity Tourism for All working to improve accessibility in the tourism and travel industry.
Alison has had a 30-year career in information management and development. She began her career in children’s libraries, before moving into the private sector to run an information department for a pharmaceutical company to manage a marketing and PR department for General Electric Capital.
Following the birth of her children she moved out of London to become the Director of St Albans Museums & Galleries where she managed the Verulamium Museum Trust, developed the exhibition strategy and oversaw over 1,000 school visits a year across all 4 sites. She moved on to work in Higher Education as Director of Development first for the University of Hertfordshire and finally for the University of Kent as a senior manager leading on fundraising for the Colyer-Fergusson Concert Hall and organising external events and graduation ceremonies in Kent and world-wide.
She has been responsible for departments of over 30 people, expenditure budgets of £1-2M, multi-million fundraising campaigns, and is experienced with data systems and the deployment of market intelligence. Alison lives in Canterbury.
Carole has worked in the public and private sectors and brings skills in social enterprise and marketing. She has experience of setting up and running small businesses involved in hospitality, recruitment, training and careers guidance. Prior to moving to Canterbury, she set up the first Community Interest Company (CIC) in the London Borough of Bromley and for over 15 years has been actively involved in the volunteering, community and social enterprise sectors, including four years as a Trustee with Community Links Bromley.
She is a Trustee of the Canterbury Society, works at the Canterbury Volunteer Centre and takes a strong interest in green issues.
Trust Vision and Mission
An arts centre that inspires creativity, nurtures talent and enriches Canterbury’s cultural life
Our mission is to regenerate the existing, empty Sidney Coper Gallery as an Arts Centre for the people of Canterbury:
- a centre that builds on the legacy of Sidney Cooper’s aims to provide art for the people of the city irrespective of background or income
- a centre that inspires creativity, nurtures talent and enriches Canterbury’s cultural life, a new ‘arts town hall’ for the whole community
- a flexible, sustainable space that offers state of the art exhibitions, workshops, art classes, education, collaboration and debate
- a centre that catalyses a new arts dividend for Canterbury, boosting culture, tourism and the economy
Our ambition
The Trust is ambitious for the role of the building, what will happen inside it, and its work with education partners and the community. Any development of the building should be exceptional and pioneering, raising the bar for arts centres and for what is expected of their role in the community, as a catalyst for artistic endeavour and a contributor to wellbeing across the whole community.
The new arts centre should not only embrace contemporary artistic and creative trends, but stretch the boundaries, the sphere for debate and interaction between practitioners. Our aim is for people to say about the Arts Centre ‘Have you seen what’s going on there? You must go and see for yourself’. The Sidney Cooper Arts Centre should have community, regional and national aspirations and impact.
The detail – Sidney Cooper Arts Trust aims
To work with partners locally, nationally and internationally including Canterbury City Council, national funding bodies, education and private sector partners to raise funds to regenerate the gallery as a new Arts Centre, offering flexible art spaces for a mix of artistic activity, underpinned by a professional Board and Management team.
To use the building and its activities to catalyse a new arts dividend for Canterbury, a city with a rich arts heritage in part spurred by Thomas Sidney Cooper himself, broadening the city’s cultural offer, helping create an innovative visitor attraction, boosting economic growth and enriching the community.
To fund educational projects such as bursaries, scholarships and awards to support young aspiring artists, echoing the aims of the original art school established in the gallery in 1868.
To support ventures that help celebrate the legacy of Sidney Cooper to Canterbury and landscape painting.
To use the story of Sidney Cooper and his support of underprivileged artists to drive a mixed-use programme of the creative arts with a strong focus on inspiring young artists and supporting those who would not have otherwise have access to the arts.