Historians
Dr Anthony Seldon MA, PhD, FRSA, MBA, FRHisS
Anthony Seldon is a leading authority on contemporary British history and headmaster of Wellington College, one of Britain’s best-known independent schools. He is also author or editor of over 30 books on contemporary history, politics and education, and is the biographer of Number 10 and several recent Prime Ministers.
After gaining an MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford, and a PhD at the London School of Economics, he became the top teacher in his year at King’s College, London. He also has an MBA. He taught at Whitgift School, Tonbridge (his old school), and St Dunstan’s, where he was Acting Headmaster. He then became Headmaster of Brighton College until he joined Wellington College in January 2006 as 13th Master. He was given a chair at the College of Teachers as Professor of Education, is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, and a governor of numbers bodies including the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He founded, with Professor Peter Hennessy, the Institute of Contemporary British History, and the Action For Happiness with Lord Layard and Geoff Mulgan.
Professor Kevin Theakston
Kevin Theakston is Professor of British Government and the Head of the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has written books on government ministers, the history of the civil service, and Winston Churchill. His latest book – After Number 10 [Palgrave, 2010] – was on the lives and careers of former prime ministers from the 18th century to the present.
Professor George Jones
George Jones has from 2003 been Emeritus Professor of Government at LSE where he was Professor of Government between 1976 and 2003. He has authored, co-authored and edited a number of books, chapters and articles on British central and local government, including the biography of Herbert Morrison: B. Donoughue and G.W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (London Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973) and (London: Phoenix Press, 2001).
He has written about advising the Prime Minister and Cabinet in J. M. Lee, G.W. Jones and J. Burnham, At the Centre of Whitehall (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998); and a study of prime ministers in G.W. Jones (ed.), West European Prime Ministers (London: Frank Cass, 1991). He wrote the first study of the private secretaries of prime ministers in G.W. Jones, “The Prime Ministers’ Secretaries: Politicians or Administrators?” in J.G. Griffith (ed.), From Politics to Administration (London: Allen and Unwin, 1975).
Dr Andrew Blick
Dr Andrew Blick is a constitutional historian. His publications include ‘People Who Live in the Dark’, a history of special advisers; ‘Premiership’, with George Jones; and – with Peter Hennessy – ‘The Hidden Wiring Emerges’, an analysis of the UK Cabinet Manual. He is currently writing ‘Beyond Magna Carta: a constitution for the United Kingdom’; and – again with George Jones – a complete history of aides to British prime ministers, ‘At Power’s Elbow’. He works at the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies, King’s College London; Democratic Audit; and the Federal Trust for Education and Research.
Professor David Reynolds
David Reynolds is Professor of International History at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Christ’s College. Winner of the Wolfson Prize for History and a Fellow of the British Academy, he is the author of ten books, including In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (2004) and America, Empire of Liberty: A New History (2009), which accompanied his award-winning series on BBC Radio 4 – also available as a BBC Audiobook. He has also made eight historical documentaries for BBC television – several of them about premiers and presidents including Churchill, Attlee, Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan. He is a member of the History & Policy editorial advisory group.
W J R Gardner
W J R (Jock) Gardner is a historian in the Naval Historical Branch of Naval Staff of the Ministry of Defence where he has worked since 1994 after a naval career, specialising in antisubmarine warfare and intelligence. As a historian, his interests are 20th century naval history and intelligence. He has lectured from Moscow to Monterey on various topics, as well as being published in a range of academic journals and holding an external post at Brunel University. His books include Decoding History: The Battle of Atlantic and Ultra (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1999). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.