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Adrian Mark Greenwood (October 1973 – 6 April 2016) was a British historian, biographer, author, and
Adrian Greenwood attended the Hawthorns School,
explaining how difficult the book would be to sell on, the thief panicked and abandoned the book in a carrier bag outside a branch of Boots in Abingdon. The thief was subsequently arrested and jailed.
art dealer
An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art.
An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...
, with a particular interest in nineteenth-century British military history. As well as hundreds of articles on antiques and collecting, he wrote two books on military history.
Early life
Parents
Greenwood's mother (now retired) was a dentist practising inReigate
Reigate ( ) is a town in Surrey, England, around south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as ''Cherchefelle'' and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The earliest archaeological evidence for huma ...
, Surrey. His father, Professor Jeremy Greenwood, is also a historian, lecturer and researcher who has written a number of books, often on arcane subjects, including ''Fuller's Earth in Surrey 1500–1900: an Economic History'' (1983), ''The New Forest and the Navy: Timber Supplies to Portsmouth Dockyard, 1660–1790'' (2004), ''The Posts of Sussex – the Chichester branch, 1250–1840'' (1973), and ''Essays towards a History of Reigate'' (1988), a work which formed the basis of Jeremy Greenwood's doctoral thesis.Information from family
Education
Adrian Greenwood attended the Hawthorns School, Bletchingley
Bletchingley (historically "Blechingley") is a village in Surrey, England. It is on the A25 road to the east of Redhill and to the west of Godstone, has a conservation area with medieval buildings and is mostly on a wide escarpment of the Gr ...
, Surrey, an independent co-educational preparatory school (though at the time a boys-only boarding school), and then Tonbridge School
(God Giveth the Increase)
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, Kent, where his history teacher for A level was Dr (later Sir) Anthony Seldon
Sir Anthony Francis Seldon (born 2 August 1953) is a British educator and contemporary historian. As an author, he is known in part for his political biographies of Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Ther ...
. He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Christ Church, Oxford before studying for an MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
at Imperial College, London.
Art and antiques
After leaving Imperial College, Greenwood began buying British Rail lost property – umbrellas, mobile phones, coats, and prams – and selling them at car boot sales around London. He soon moved on to antique furniture.The trouble was I wasn't very good at it, and after a couple of years things got pretty desperate. To make ends meet I delivered copies of theThen in 1998 he sent his first article to the ''Antiques Bulletin'', and it was published. From then on he began writing for most of the British antiques and collectables magazines, as well as several interior design and heritage titles.Yellow Pages The yellow pages are telephone directories of businesses, organized by category rather than alphabetically by business name, in which advertising is sold. The directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for .... At one point I applied for a job as a pall bearer.
Books online
In 2000 he began selling books online. "I was lucky I caught the right moment. You could go to an auction and buy a tea chest of books for £10, and then put them online for £10 each. The trouble was I ended up with five garages full with 25,000 books, so I started buying more selectively, and dealing in rare and antiquarian titles."Disagreement with J. K. Rowling
Among Greenwood's specialities were Harry Potter books, leading, on one occasion, to an argument with the series' authorJ. K. Rowling
Joanne Rowling ( "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The ser ...
. "I had bought a lot at Sothebys. It was a drawing Rowling had done of a little boy. Also there was a hand-coloured invitation to Rowling's daughter's 2nd birthday party (before Rowling's success, when she was living in Leith) and a list she had made of potential character names for the first Harry Potter book. When I put this on eBay, Rowling's literary agents demanded they be removed from sale due to 'breach of copyright.' I argued there was no breach of copyright if no pictures of the items appeared and so I sold them without images instead. I was a bit taken aback at how ferocious she was."
In November 2010, one of Greenwood's first edition Harry Potter books was stolen from a gallery in Woodstock
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aq ...
, a theft which caught the public imagination and was widely reported. After Greenwood appeared on ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
and BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...Art dealer
Greenwood diversified into taxidermy, classic cars, prints, maps, paintings and art, most notably works byBanksy
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigram ...
. His sale of a safe by Banksy led to much press interest. He supplied items to a broad range of clients, including the British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
and the Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...
.
Historian
In 2011, Greenwood retired from dealing to concentrate on writing. His first book, ''Victoria's Scottish Lion'', a biography of Sir Colin Campbell, received very positive reviews. It is the first major biography of Campbell since 1880. "I first came across him 25 years ago when I was doing History 'A’ Level", explained Greenwood, "I couldn't understand why he wasn't more famous. Over the years I kept seeing his name in books on the Victorian army, by historians like Trevor Royle and Saul David, and he seemed by far the most brilliant general of his age, yet no one had looked at his career thoroughly for a century or more. Then, as I found out more about him, the idea of writing the story of this working class maverick, riling the Victorian establishment, became irresistible. As one reader said to me, 'You wonder why you haven't heard of this man before'." While researching Campbell, Greenwood discovered a series of letters from Peninsular War officer, Lt Peter Le Mesurier, spanning almost the whole of the conflict, which he edited and was published by Amberley.Influences
Greenwood citedCorelli Barnett
Correlli Douglas Barnett CBE FRHistS FRSL FRSA (28 June 1927 – 10 July 2022) was an English military historian, who also wrote works of economic history, particularly on the United Kingdom's post-war "industrial decline".
Early life
Barnett ...
and Christopher Hibbert as stylistic influences, as historians who sought to bridge the gap between academia and popular history. "I get very tired with the old artificial distinction between academic books which have to be dull as ditchwater, and popular history which in striving to be exciting, fails to be accurate. I don't see why you shouldn't try to be engaging and well-researched."
Death
Greenwood was last seen alive at theSainsbury's
J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales.
Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...
supermarket in Oxford Road, Kidlington
Kidlington is a major village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England, between the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal, north of Oxford and 7 miles (12 km) south-west of Bicester. It remains officially a village despite its size. The 20 ...
, on 5 April 2016. He was murdered the next day, and his body found by his cleaner at his home on Iffley Road
Iffley Road is a major arterial road in Oxford, England. It leads from the Plain, near Magdalen Bridge, southeast towards the village of Iffley. While it becomes Henley Avenue at Iffley Turn, and then Rose Hill, the whole stretch from the ri ...
the following day, 7 April. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the cause of death was given as "multiple stab wounds" with more than 30. He was 42 years old.
Police said that the attack probably happened in the hallway of his home, and that it was a "vicious and sustained attack". They first arrested a 26-year-old man, but at that time they were still seeking the weapon used and were keeping an open mind as to motive. The arrested man was later released without charge. A first edition of the children's book ''The Wind in the Willows
''The Wind in the Willows'' is a children's novel by the British novelist Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. It details the story of Mole, Ratty, and Badger as they try to help Mr. Toad, after he becomes obsessed with motorcars and get ...
'', still in its original dust-jacket and valued at £50,000, was missing.
A second person, a 50-year-old Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
man, Michael Danaher, was subsequently arrested on 10 April on suspicion of murder. On 12 April 2016, Danaher was charged with murder, and remanded into custody the following day. He placed ''The Wind in the Willows'' for sale on eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
the day after Greenwood's murder.
Danaher appeared in court on 15 April by video link
Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...
to confirm his name, speaking from HM Prison Woodhill
HM Prison Woodhill is a Category A male prison, located in Milton Keynes, England. Woodhill Prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. A section of the prison is designated as a Young Offenders Institution. A Secure Training Centre ...
where he would remain until his next court appearance in July. Following a three-week trial, Danaher was found guilty at Oxford Crown Court and sentenced to life imprisonment of 34 years.
''The Wind in the Willows Murder'', a documentary about the murder, aired on 19 July 2017 on Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
as part of the '' Catching a Killer'' series.
Bibliography
* *Recent articles
* * * *References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenwood, Adrian 1973 births 2016 deaths British military historians Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Alumni of Imperial College London Historians of India People educated at Tonbridge School Place of birth missing People from Surrey British murder victims Murder in Oxfordshire Deaths by blade weapons