Who is this year’s High Sheriff?
The High Sheriff for 2026-2027 is Francis Burkitt DL, of Granchester.
Francis Burkitt was born in Cambridge and brought up in Grantchester, two miles south-west of the city; his great-grandfather was Professor of Divinity and his grandfather lectured in Prehistoric Archaeology, both at Cambridge University.
He lives in Grantchester with his wife Joanna, and they have three children. Francis read Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge and then embarked on a career in the City of London, advising large UK companies on their finances, which he has recently retired from.
Francis was a South Cambridgeshire District Councillor for 12 years, and as part of that role he served on the Greater Cambridge Partnership, becoming its Chair. Using his financial knowledge, he was a Non-Executive Director of the Cambridge Building Society and is a member of Trinity College’s Investment Committee. He is active within the church, being a Canon of Ely Cathedral and Senior Non-Executive Member of its Chapter, and also a member of Bishop’s Council with a particular focus on looking after the Diocese’s Glebe Land and investments.
He was a Trustee of the conservation charity Cambridge Past, Present and Future, and is a Trustee of The Arbory Trust, which runs an environmentally-friendly woodland burial site near Cambridge. He has fund-raised for Red Balloon, the Cambridge-based educational charity for severely-bullied children, as is currently Chair of the Campaign Board for the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital (part of Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust).
Francis will focus his Shrieval Year primarily (but by no means exclusively) on all aspects of the ‘justice system’ – the police, courts and tribunals, prisons and the probation service, including the prevention of crime, assistance for victims and the rehabilitation of offenders. He believes that, in our modern busy world, we often don’t have or take enough time to properly thank the people who work for the public good – whether in the areas mentioned above, or in other areas of civic, charity or community life, the uniformed services or healthcare services – and he’s looking forward to being able to spend his time as High Sheriff thanking as many such people as possible on behalf of the wider community of Cambridgeshire.
