Former St Bart’s student and Royal Navy Commander Lucy Ottley awarded OBE in the King’s 2024 New Year Honours List

A former St Bartholomew’s School student has been appointed an OBE in the King’s 2024 New Year Honours List.

Lucy Ottley (née Bell) studied her A’Levels – human biology, sociology and theatre studies – at St Bart’s from 1994 to 1996.

During her time at the school, she was part of the Navy contingent in the Combined Cadet Force which inspired her to pursue a career in the Armed Forces.

Her 23-year career in the Royal Navy saw her rise to the rank of Commander, help improve the working conditions of her peers and celebrate the diversity of all those in the service.

Mrs Ottley said: “I am delighted to have received my state honour in the King’s New Year Honours.

“It is important for everyone to thrive in their workplace, so to be recognised for this work, which I undertook voluntarily in addition to my primary role, is a huge achievement for me and I share it with my former naval servicewomen’s network colleagues.”

During her time in the Royal Navy, Mrs Ottley specialised as a logistics officer and served on numerous ships, as well as serving with the Royal Marines in Norway, mine clearance in the Mediterranean and Arabian Gulf and land operations in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and the Far East.

She also led the Royal Navy Servicewomen’s Network for three years to improve the lived experiences of servicewomen and encourage others to achieve the best from their careers.

In July 2021, she was invited to become a special adviser to the Secretary of State for Defence (then MP Ben Wallace) to bring about change to tri-service policies to address recommendations made in the Atherton Report, a House of Commons defence committee inquiry into the lived experiences of servicewomen.

All recommendations, as well as a number of other initiatives, were successfully delivered over the following two years.

It was also during this time that Mrs Ottley led the project for the Royal Navy to collaborate across their diversity networks and raise the profile of some of the service’s best people.

She delivered an awards ceremony which not only celebrated the diversity of the workforce, but also brought the networks together to successfully achieve better support and conditions for all in the Royal Navy.

These projects were undertaken while she was employed in a high readiness operation headquarters with regular deployments abroad to places such as Eastern Europe and Korea.

St Bart’s headteacher David Fitter said: “We’re always pleased to hear about former students’ careers, and so to get news of Lucy’s OBE was an exceptionally good start to the year.

“We are immensely proud of her achievements.”