Maritime Heritage Trust (MHT) is the national membership body for ship and boat preservation projects in the UK and was created in 2011 through the merger of the Maritime Trust (1969) and Heritage Afloat (1994). Henry has been involved first with Heritage Afloat and latterly MHT, becoming Chair in 2019, when he took over from David Morgan.
Henry Cleary was born in the City of Derry in Northern Ireland in 1951 and most of his working career was spent in the UK Government Department of the Environment and its successors, working on planning, housing and environmental protection. He retired in 2011.
He has been involved in heritage in some form since childhood and from 1978 to 2019 owned and operated, with the help of friends, the 1945 built steam vessel VIC 56 (based on a Scottish puffer design). This has given him experience of many heritage preservation challenges across the UK heritage fleet. As well as VIC 56, he has managed a National Lottery funded steam engineering training programme and was a Trustee of the UK’s Heritage Alliance for 7 years.
One of our major goals in MHT has been to renew and diversify our Trustee Board which now has a 50% male/female balance and a much lower average age. More is needed but this will help us better understand today’s challenges and support our members in addressing them. Support for Heritage Harbours is one way we can do that.
* Heritage Harbours is a joint initiative between 12 local Trusts and heritage organisations and 3 national partners – National Historic Ships UK, Historic England – the Government body that has responsibility for the built heritage and MHT.
