Clive Parkinson obituary

Clive Parkinson, a 63‑year‑old reader in arts, health and social justice at Manchester Metropolitan University, died after a battle with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer diagnosed in early 2020. Born in Morecambe, Lancashire, he left school at 16 and later founded an art studio for adults with learning disabilities at the Royal Albert Hospital, an experience he later called the most formative of his life. Over a career that spanned the NHS, higher education and the voluntary sector, Parkinson became one of the United Kingdom’s leading voices on the intersection of arts and health, convening the Manchester Institute for Arts, Health & Social Change and authoring influential texts such as the Manifesto for Arts & Health, the Recoverist Manifesto, the Manchester Declaration and A Social Glue.

Parkinson’s work reshaped health policy and practice far beyond his local community. After the Royal Albert closed in 1996, he led mental‑health promotion for Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust and managed day services for people with addiction and schizophrenia, before directing Arts for Health Cornwall & Isles of Scilly and later returning north to a two‑decade tenure at Manchester Metropolitan. He collaborated with an all‑party parliamentary group on arts, health and wellbeing and contributed to developments across the UK, Europe, Australia and Japan. His scholarship earned a doctorate by published work in 2018 and an honorary chair in creative health and social change at the University of Manchester in 2022, underscoring his impact on public‑health discourse.

Even after leaving academia in 2021, Parkinson remained active, delivering a keynote at the Culture, Health & Wellbeing International Conference where he reflected on power, inequality and sustainability through his own cancer treatment and the solace he found walking the hills near his hometown. He continued to write, paint, make films and travel with his partner and three children, Jesse, Charlie and Jack. His death marks the loss of a visionary who linked creativity with social justice, leaving a legacy that continues to influence arts‑health initiatives and public‑health policy worldwide.

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