Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
Arthur Burden, chairman of builders and civils merchants Burdens has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to charity.
In 1976 his father Wilfred Thomas Burden, who founded Burdens in 1929, established the Burdens Charitable Foundation, donating 40% of his company shares and Arthur Burden became chairman of both the Foundation and company in 1983.
In 1987 he was instrumental in introducing one of the earliest employee share schemes to be adopted by any company, laying the foundation for future corporate policy.
The Charitable Foundation continues to support causes both at home and abroad, including recently the La Renaissance project to build and run a school to provide education for children, including some who are visually impaired or totally blind, in Burkina Faso, West Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world.
Burden said: “So many people are worthy of the award, but so few are chosen and I have never felt that I was doing anything out of the ordinary.”
