The Sheriffs’ biographies
Alderman and Sheriff Gregory Jones KC
Alderman Gregory Jones KC is Sheriff of the City of London for the year 2024/25.
Professional highlights
Gregory practises at the bar in chambers within his ward at Francis Taylor Building, Temple. His expertise includes town and country planning, Parliamentary, climate change, environmental, ESG, EU, compulsory purchase, administrative and local government law. Gregory is a Bencher of both Lincoln’s Inn and of Inner Temple. An associate tenant of KBW Chambers in Leeds, Gregory also practices from the Bar Library in Belfast, Northern Ireland and from the Law Library in Dublin, Ireland. He is the author of a number of leading legal text books and articles. He has worked at the European Commission and was the first Jean Pierre Warner Scholar to the European Court of Justice. In 2015 he was appointed by the Irish government to chair the expert review of An Bord Pleanála.
Civic engagement
Gregory has served as a Common Councillor for his Ward from 2012 until his election as Alderman in 2016. He is currently Deputy Chair of both the Hampstead Heath, Highgate Wood and Queen's Park Committee and The Committee of Aldermen to Administer the Sir William Coxen Trust Fund and Chair of both the Magistracy and Livery Sub-Committee (General Purposes Committee of Aldermen) and The Emanuel Hospital Management Sub (Court of Aldermen) Committee.
Education
Gregory was educated at Colfe's School (Exhibitor). He then read jurisprudence at New College, Oxford and an LLM at University College, London.
Wider interests
Gregory is the Chancellor of the Dioceses of Manchester. He is a Fellow of the Centre of European Law, King’s College, London and also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Gregory is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of St. Stephen’s House, Oxford University and a Law Fellow of Goodenough College, London. Gregory is a former school governor both of the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools and of Colfe’s School. Gregory is a Liveryman of the Leathersellers', Butchers' and Arbitrators’ Companies. He is a freeman of the Founders' and Stationers' companies.
Sheriff David Chalk
Mr David Chalk is Sheriff of the City of London for the year 2024/25.
David was born at the London Hospital, where his parents did their medical training, and educated at Chigwell School and Radley College. Following Edinburgh University, his career was in the City in research and strategy at the Henley Centre for Forecasting, the advertising and marketing group WPP and the Future Foundation, a think tank based in the heart of Smithfield.
Next, he became a director of Age Concern Enterprises developing financial services for older people – giving him an enduring interest in this area.
David then founded a care-in-the-home business in the South-West with the aim of keeping older people out of care homes for as long as possible. He was elected as a director of the UK Homecare Association which was very intense during the Covid pandemic.
The Livery has been a very important part of David’s life. He joined the Drapers’ Company in 1982, becoming a Liveryman in 1986. Elected to the Court in 2008, he was Master in 2021-22.
David has been a governor of two of the Company's schools; Thomas Adams School, Wem in Shropshire and Howells School in Llandaff and served as Chair of the Thomas Howell Education Fund for North Wales. He now chairs its Charities Committee where the focus is on education, social welfare, military veterans, prisoner rehabilitation and older people.
He has had a long association with St Michael’s Cornhill through bellringing and a love of choral music, interests that have taken him to many churches around the City and beyond, including St Pauls and Westminster Abbey. He is a member of the Broad Street Ward Club and the City Livery Club.
