This is the personal website of Gavin Drake.
Gavin Drake is in the process of establishing Church Street Bureau, a new company which will provide writing, editorial and videography services. He will do this alongside his campaigning work against gender-based violence through The Jill Saward Organisation, established to continue the 30-year campaign begun by his first wife, Jill Saward, who died in January 2017.
Gavin Drake also contributes opinion pieces and features for publications in his main areas of expertise, which include gender-based violence, ecclesiastical law, and the Holy Land.
Between May 2019 and November 2023, he was the Director of Communications for the Anglican Communion, a family of 42 autonomous and independent-yet-interdependent national, pan-national and regional churches which trace their origins to Saint Augustine of Canterbury’s mission to convert the English in AD 595.
Gavin Drake was elected as a member of the Church of England’s General Synod by the laity of the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham for the five year term beginning in 2021. He resigned on 10 July 2023 after the Business Committee and Archbishops’ Council worked to prevent debates on safeguarding reform.
Previously, Gavin Drake was a journalist who worked for a range of media outlets including BBC Radio Four, Reuters TV, Sky News, GMTV, London News Radio (now LBC), The Times, The Independent, Today, Church Times, The Jewish Chronicle, The Methodist Recorder and Cross Rhythms magazine.
Gavin Drake was, for 18 years, the pitch-side announcer for Walsall Football Club and had the privilege of addressing Walsall fans from the hallowed turf of Wembley Stadium ahead of the 2015 Football League Trophy Final, which Walsall went on to lose 2-0.
Gavin Drake was the Director of Communications for the Bishop and Diocese of Lichfield between 2002 and 2011. In the early 1990s, he was the Assistant Manager of The Vine, which was then an alcohol free pub in Walsall town centre, established by the town’s churches. In this role, he regularly appeared as an expert commentator on television programmes including Kilroy, The Time The Place, Central Weekend Live and Thursday Night Live.