Nicholas Albery

Albery was born at Bricket House, St Albans, Hertfordshire, son of the theatre impresario Sir Donald Albery (son of Sir Bronson Albery, also a theatre impresario) and his second wife, Cicely, daughter of Army officer Reginald Harvey Henderson Boys.

While a student at St John's College, Oxford, Albery became involved with psychedelic and spiritual movements in San Francisco, California, and dropped out of college. After a period in Haight Ashbury, he returned to the UK and joined the anti-university in London.

Albery 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 Albery, 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.

In 1974, in the aftermath of a violent attack by police on the Windsor Free Festival, Albery, with playwright Heathcote Williams and his partner Diana Senior successfully sued David Holdsworth, the Thames Valley Chief Constable, for creating a riotous situation in which the police attacked the plaintiffs.{{cite web|url=http://www.enablerpublications.co.uk/pdfs/notonly2.pdf |title=Alan Dearling's 'Not only but also...' memoirs of Free Festivals }}

Albery was a Minister for the Free State of Frestonia in North Kensington[https://www.vice.com/en/article/republic-of-frestonia-tony-sleep-032/ "The Notting Hill Squatters".] Vice (magazine) and a Green Party candidate in Notting Hill.

In 1985, out of BIT Information Service, Albery 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 Institute included Edward de Bono, Anita Roddick and Fay Weldon among its patrons.

The Global Ideas Bank, which Albery 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.

Albery became interested in ecological approaches to death and funerals, and in breaking the taboos that surround death in western societies. In 1991, with Christianne Heal, he and his wife founded the Natural Death Centre, offering advice on DIY burials.The much-patronised centre provides midwives for the dying, death exercises, recyclable coffins, etc.{{Cite web |title=Natural Death Centre .org - The Natural Death Centre |url=http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/ |access-date=2024-01-25 |website=www.naturaldeath.org.uk |publisher=Naturaldeath.org.uk}}

Albery founded the self-organising Saturday Walkers' Club in the mid-1990s.{{cite web|url=http://www.walkingclub.org.uk/ |title=Time Out Book of Country Walks & Saturday Walkers Club |publisher=Walkingclub.org.uk |date=2011-03-03}}{{cite book|editor=Albery, Nicholas |title=Time Out Book of Country Walks: 52 Walks Within Easy Reach of London: Vol 1 |publisher=Time Out |year=2005 |edition=Revised Updated |isbn=1-904978-88-6 }}

Albery was married to psychotherapist Josefine Speyer. He died age 52 in a car accident, on 3 June 2001.{{cite web|url=http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/index.php?page=trustees |title=Natural Death Centre .org - Who we are |publisher=Naturaldeath.org.uk |date=2001-06-03 |access-date=2014-07-25}}

His brother is stage director Tim Albery.

Incomplete list:

• {{cite book |last1=Beam |first1=Alan |author1-link=Nicholas Albery |last2=Morrison |first2=Pete |title=Rehearsal for the Year 2000: (drugs, Religions, Madness, Crime, Communes, Love, Visions, Festivals and Lunar Energy) : the Rebirth of Albion Free State (known in the Dark Ages as England) : Memoirs of a Male Midwife (1966-1976) |date=1976 |publisher=Revelaction Press |location=London |isbn=978-0-9505244-0-5 |language=en}}

::an account of the early years of BIT, by Nicholas Albery, with most names changed to protect the innocent{{cite web |title=Alan BEAM by [various authors] |url=https://www.biblio.com/book/alan-beam-various-authors/d/1507090893 |website=Biblio.com |access-date=18 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230518163834/https://www.biblio.com/book/alan-beam-various-authors/d/1507090893 |archive-date=18 May 2023 |language=en}}

• {{cite book |last1=Albery |first1=Nicholas |title=Poem for the Day: One |publisher=Nicholas Albery Foundation |language=en |quote=With a foreword by Wendy Cope.}}{{cite web |title=Poem for the Day Book One |url=https://www.cansurviving.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=338 |website=cansurviving.com |access-date=18 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230518163800/https://www.cansurviving.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=338 |archive-date=18 May 2023}}
• {{cite book |last1=Albery |first1=Nicholas |title=Co-op Year 2000: The Nuts & Bolts of Caring & Sharing |date=1979 |publisher=Nicholas Albery |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=81kDMwEACAAJ |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last1=Albery |first1=Nicholas |last2=Ratcliffe |first2=Peter |title=Social Innovations: A Compendium : the Latest Ideas and Award-winning Schemes from The Institute for Social Inventions |date=1993 |publisher=Institute for Social Inventions |isbn=978-0-948826-30-6 |language=en}}

• {{cite book |last1=McKay |first1=George |last2=Webster |first2=Emma |title=The Impact of Festivals |date=November 2016 |publisher=Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Connected Communities programme |url=https://impactoffestivals.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/webster-and-mckay-2016-from-glyndebourne-to-glastonbury-the-impact-of-british-music-festivals4.pdf |doi=10.6084/m9.figshare.3413836}}{{cite web |title=Celebrating the conclusion of the Impact of Festivals project |url=https://impactoffestivals.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/celebrating-the-conclusion-of-the-impact-of-festivals-project/ |website=The Impact of Festivals |access-date=18 May 2023 |language=en |date=14 November 2016 |quote=Outputs from the project include...}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.globalideasbank.org/site/home/ The Global Ideas Bank]
• [http://www.alberyfoundation.org/ Nicholas Albery Foundation]
• [http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/ The Natural Death Centre]
• [http://www.cesc.net/radicalweb/scholars/albery/albery.html Nicholas Albery page, Radical Consultation]
• [http://www.walkingclub.org.uk/index.shtml The Saturday Walkers' Club]

{{UK underground}}

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Category:1948 births

Category:2001 deaths

Category:20th-century squatters

Category:Alumni of St John's College, Oxford

Category:People from St Albans