Don Mead Awarded British Empire Medal

Donald Mead, Vice-President of the Oscar Wilde Society, Chairman of the Society from 2002 until 2023 and editor of The Wildean from 1994 until 2016, has been awarded the honour of the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the New Year Honours List 2025. The citation reads:

Donald Robin Mead, Vice-President and lately Chair, The Oscar Wilde Society.

For services to literature.

Don is proud to have received this honour which is for his work as Chairman and therefore recognises all the excellent work done over many years by his team of colleagues.

Gyles Brandreth, President of the Oscar Wilde Society, writes: ‘Thirty or so years ago Don took the Oscar Wilde Society and, with diligence and diplomacy, transformed it from a small and quirky literary society into one of the world’s leading literary societies, a real contributor to Anglo-Irish letters, with a journal in The Wildean that is required reading in universities around the world.

‘He has provided leadership and scholarship in equal measure. His contribution to Wilde studies, to gay studies, to nineteenth century English and Irish literary studies has been remarkable. I know that everyone in the world of Wildean scholarship will be delighted that his special contribution has been recognised.’

Congratulations go also to our honorary patrton Sir Stephen Fry, who was knighted in the New Year’s Honours List for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity.