Birthday Honours 2021: Artist who made face shields gets MBE

Edward Chudleigh started making PPE when he heard from doctor friends that they needed more equipment

A Bath artist who turned his hand to making PPE during the first wave of the pandemic has been made a MBE.

Edward Chudleigh designed a face shield after friends in the NHS told him they needed extra protective equipment.

The 41-year-old said that the honour, awarded to him by the Queen, was a "big shock."

"It's only now that I properly believe it," said Mr Chudleigh, whose firm has now delivered over 80,000 masks to medical teams.

"I nearly deleted the email when I received it because I thought it was spam. I had to take a few moments for it to sink in and then ring them to check," he added.

Mr Chudleigh uses robotics and computer assisted design (CAD) techniques to make experimental sculptures.

He said he applied the same process to the problem of designing a medical grade face mask.

'Award not just about me'

Within days of turning his creative lab into a PPE design workshop, Mr Chudleigh had created a prototype mask that satisfied safety standards.

The former engineer then recruited a team to help scale up production and founded a company called Foldall Face Shields.

Mr Chudleigh approached The Revd Roger Driver for permission to set up a production line in St Michaels Without church in Bath.

With the help of hundreds of local volunteers, his company began making up to 7,000 masks a day for use in hospitals and care homes across the south west of England.

"This award really isn't about me," he said. "It's a reflection of the many many people who put a lot of time in to help the nation.

"It was a fantastic collaboration. It couldn't have happened without them."