Arise Sir Gordon! Big Issue co-founder Gordon Roddick knighted in King’s birthday honours

Big Issue co-founder Gordon Roddick has been awarded a knighthood for his services to charity and philanthropy in the King’s birthday honours.

The husband of The Body Shop founder Anita, Roddick has a sizable footprint in social entrepreneurship.

He can be credited with the idea to set up the Big Issue magazine after he bought a copy of a street paper called Street News in New York. He was impressed with the homeless vendor’s story and opted to bring the model back to Britain.

That proved to be the trailblazer for the Big Issue. Roddick teamed up with Lord John Bird to kick off the magazine in 1991 and it proved to be a publishing phenomenon that continues to change lives 34 years later.

Lord Bird said: “I am very pleased to see that Gordon Roddick has been knighted for his work over many decades through The Body Shop in areas of fair trade, social justice and business. As my co-founder of the Big Issue and the man who commissioned me to start a street paper, I am delighted that recognition has come in this form.

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“Of course, I have known the geezer since I was 21, hiding from the police in Edinburgh when I met him in a pub in 1967; became mates, lost touch with him and then reconnected with him over 20 years later. And out of that early meeting – and out of the business that he and his wife Anita built – came the wonderful, splendid, innovative, earth-shattering phenomenon called the Big Issue. Gordon is a great mate, I still see him often and wish him all the best.”

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