William Beharrell

Dr William Beharrell is the founder of The Fathom Trust – and is creating opportunities for personal and social regeneration through a holistic, community-based approach that he calls Fathoming.

The Fathom Trust is building a network of educational and therapeutic communities to help people learn to live well and create social, economic, and spiritual renewal.

Fathom hubs bring together networks of craftspeople to help people discover deeper meaning in their lives, grow skills and thrive – creating intergenerational opportunities for flourishing through making and learning together.

The Fathom Trust has at its heart the three C’s of crafts, conservation, and contemplation. The Trust runs a variety of programmes including Folk Schools for children who are excluded from school, social prescriptions through green crafts courses for people with a variety of health conditions, and one day rest and renewal retreats for people experiencing burnout (including health professionals).

Will is also a doctor specialising in psychiatry in the NHS, currently working for CAMHS in Wales.

Will is also a founding member of HM King Charles III’s charity Turquoise Mountain and has worked on community development projects around the world. In its first five years in Afghanistan, Will helped Turquoise Mountain run a programme to preserve traditional crafts, along with social and economic regeneration. This also included setting up a primary health centre and primary school.

He has subsequently undertaken projects in Romania and Jordan with a focus on community development, heritage crafts, conservation and health. He has degrees in medicine from Cambridge and Arabic with Persian from Durham and has worked in Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Will co-founded Turquoise Mountain with former international development secretary Rory Stewart. Rory says:

Will Beharrell – the founder of Fathom – is a very special person. I have worked with him very closely in Afghanistan and amongst very vulnerable and challenged communities in London. He has a unique combination of wisdom, humility, and gentle humour – as well as a deep academic education. His fundamental insight -that living and creating in a craft community can be deeply helpful for mind and soul – seems entirely right. It’s often not an easy message to convey today. But each of us that has been lucky enough to find such moments of meaning can attest to its power. We are very lucky to have Will and this project.