Reverend Freda Jackson awarded British Empire Medal

Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, Warren Smith, Mayoress Elaine Dutton, Reverend Freda Jackson and Mayor Ray Dutton

Reverend Freda Jackson was awarded the British Empire Medal for her work in Middleton at Manchester Town Hall on Tuesday (4 April).

Through her many roles as an educator, historian, reader and member of the clergy, Revd Jackson has supported the young, elderly, lonely, depressed, bereaved and also helped people with disabilities in the Middleton community.

For over 20 years, she has led the church choir and on many occasions, her choral pursuits have taken her abroad to fundraising events in the USA where she has performed concerts at the Episcopal Church Alabama, raising thousands of dollars for the premature baby unit in Montgomery. She has formed a lunch time fellowship group to engage with the elderly residents overseeing their welfare and has committed over 20 years to the group.

With a background in teaching, she has engaged and encouraged all children in the church as well as in Middleton Parish School, where she has been a Governor for 20 years, to form a bond with her elderly parishioners to support one another.

With this and the introduction of the prayer buddies scheme, she has ensured there are healthy links between the church and the school’s children.

She is an accomplished artist and writer and her achievements over the years have gained her the utmost respect from her peers. She is a pillar of her community.

Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, Warren Smith, welcomed the recipients, saying: “It is with personal pride and delight that I welcome the recipients of the British Empire Medal and their friends and families to this investiture today. Pride, because every citizen of this nation should be proud to celebrate the enormous contribution made by each of those who are to receive this award and you will hear more of what each person has done shortly. My delight, as Her Majesty’s representative in this county of Greater Manchester, is to be present and to make these awards on her behalf.

“In many ways, each of these people demonstrate the wonderful variety of volunteering opportunities that exist in our county and the personal commitment made to sections of the community that makes a difference to the lives of others. Volunteering is at the heart of who we are as human beings as we try to put back into society just a small amount of what we have been given throughout our lives.

“I have little doubt that there are many more people worthy of recognition who have not been fortunate enough to have been put forward for awards of this kind- why don’t you nominate them: they exist in every strata of our society and they should be recognised for what they do.

“My congratulations to each of you who will today become Members of the Order of the British Empire.”

The medal is awarded for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Crown and was established in 1922 to replace the Medal of the Order of the British Empire, which was first established just five years earlier in 1917.

Between 1993 and 2012, the medal laid in abeyance in the UK, although it was awarded in some Commonwealth realms.

Following the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, then Prime Minister David Cameron announced the medal would be issued again in 2012 to coincide with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.