Tributes paid to Green Party pioneer John Marjoram after his death aged 86

Tributes have been paid to the first elected Green Party councillor, who has died aged 86.

John Marjoram was elected in 1986, a year after the Green Party had been formed, and was a councillor at town and district level for 35 years until he stepped down in 2021.

Mr Marjoram, from Stroud in Gloucestershire, died on Saturday after a long illness. He held the record as the longest continuously serving Green Party councillor.

An environmentalist, Quaker and pacifist, Mr Marjoram was a co-founder of the Stroud Green Party in 1985 and was elected to the district council the following year.

As well as district councillor, Mr Marjoram was elected to the town council when it was formed in 1990, before becoming the UK’s first Green Party mayor.

He grew up in rural Essex and developed an early interest in politics during dinner table debates with his staunch Labour father and Conservative-voting mother.

When he was called up for national service he cited his pacifist beliefs, and remained in an administrative role while others in his intake went to Malaysia to fight the Communists.

In 1968 he moved to Stroud with his young family, drawn there by his affiliation with the Quakers, who had a strong presence in the town.

Catherine Braun, Green Party councillor and leader of Stroud District Council, said: “It was John who persuaded me to stand as a paper candidate, before I was eventually elected to Stroud District Council.

“He was such an influential and inspirational activist, not just to us here in Stroud district but across the whole Green movement. He will be much missed.”

Martin Baxendale, a district councillor in Stroud, said: “John’s first election leaflet for Stroud District Council in the 1980s inspired me.