Elizabeth Creak Charitable Trust
Elizabeth Creak was born in Slough in 1926. She attended McGill University in Canada before working for Allen Lane at Penguin Books in both the UK and latterly America, where she helped to establish their new venture. She returned to the UK to eventually work with her uncle, Clyde Higgs, who by then had built up a thriving two thousand acre dairy farm in Warwickshire. Prior to this, Clyde had also developed a four thousand acre farm in the foothills of Mount Kilamanjaro and held a number of other positions including: Managing Director of English Farms in Wiltshire; Agricultural correspondent of the BBC and Council Member of the Royal Agricultural Society.
Clyde was a highly innovative and enterprising farmer who was well known for challenging the status quo and cross-fertilizing best practices among farmers in the UK and around the world. His practical approach and constant quest for efficiency, gained at the family’s electric motor business, helped him to significantly increase output across his farms. He clearly recognized a similar passion and ability in Elizabeth and mentored her to become his successor.
In 1963 Elizabeth inherited Clyde’s farm in Warwickshire and ran it with great success for a number of years. She was a highly capable and well respected farmer and brought many creative ideas to the world of farming. She eventually sold the bulk of the business, but maintained a substantial acreage around Stratford. Elizabeth’s business acumen, determination and integrity were the reasons she was invited on to the boards of many local charitable organizations including the Royal Agricultural Society, the Stoneleigh Abbey Trust and the Stratford Society. She was the first female chairman of the Warwickshire branch of the NFU and in 1998 she became the first woman to hold the office of High Sheriff of Warwickshire. She was also a keen supporter of local craftsmen, artists and the theatre.
Elizabeth passed away in October 2013 and left the bulk of her estate to the Elizabeth Creak Charitable Trust. Elizabeth created the Trust to provide ‘Clyde Higgs Scholarships’ in agriculture; support and encourage new blood in farming and finance projects to help farmers survive and ultimately thrive in their challenging modern environment.
Scholars Sponsored
Only most recent are listed.
- 2024
Sam Watson-Jones
I grew up on a family arable farm in Shropshire. I spent seven years working on and managing the farm full time, but I was troubled at how far behind farming was in its adoption of truly digital...
- 2023
Thomas Clark
I returned to the family business on a full time basis in 2009 after completing my Agricultural degree at Edinburgh Scottish Agricultural Collage. I farm in Perthshire in partnership with my father...
- 2022
Emily Padfield
I wasn’t born into a farming family, but I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a community willing to offer me copious amounts of experience. - 2021
Anna Bowen
I grew up on a dairy farm in Carmarthenshire where my brother and father breed pedigree Holsteins, I now live in Ceredigion where my partner and I contract farm a herd of 300 spring block calving...
- 2020
Hannah Senior
I grew up in a farming village in Yorkshire. Life later took me elsewhere – to University, a career in London, and business school at Stanford in California. I returned to agriculture when I acquired PBS International, a business which serves plant breeders and seed producers by using technical fabrics to control pollen flows. It was then that I realised how much I had missed the agricultural and scientific world. - 2019
Sam Martin
I have been born and bred in Hampshire and I am happy that our farm in the South Down National Park is home to my wife Anna and I and our 2 sons, Henry and Angus. I am also lucky to have a kiwi mother so have been very lucky to spend a lot of time in New Zealand and I hope this has given me an outward view on life. - 2017
William Atkinson
I grew up in North Yorkshire having left school at 17, I came home to work on the family farm with both my parents Martin, Valerie and elder brother Robert being involved in the business. Although we are a mixed farm I’m able to concentrate my attention to the arable side of the business.