D. R. (Richard) Thorpe (born 1943) is a historian and biographer who has written biographies of three British Prime Ministers of the mid 20th century,
Sir Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achieving rapid promo ...
,
Sir Alec Douglas-Home
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel (; 2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995), styled as Lord Dunglass between 1918 and 1951 and being The 14th Earl of Home from 1951 till 1963, was a British Conservative Party (UK), Conse ...
and
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...
.
Education and academic career
Thorpe was educated at
Fettes College
Fettes College () is a co-educational independent boarding and day school in Edinburgh, Scotland, with over two-thirds of its pupils in residence on campus. The school was originally a boarding school for boys only and became co-ed in 1983. In ...
, Edinburgh and
Selwyn College, Cambridge
Selwyn College, Cambridge (formally Selwyn College in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1882 by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of George Augustus Selwyn (18 ...
. He taught history at
Charterhouse
Charterhouse may refer to:
* Charterhouse (monastery), of the Carthusian religious order
Charterhouse may also refer to:
Places
* The Charterhouse, Coventry, a former monastery
* Charterhouse School, an English public school in Surrey
London ...
, a public school in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
, for over 30 years. Among other academic appointments, he was Archives Fellow of
Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities.
In 1958, a trust was establish ...
, and a Fellow of
St Antony's College, Oxford
St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1950 as the result of the gift of French merchant Sir Antonin Besse of Aden, St Antony's specialises in international relations, economic ...
and
Brasenose College
Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the m ...
, Oxford.
Published works
Thorpe's first book, ''The Uncrowned Prime Ministers'' (1980), examined the careers of
Austen Chamberlain
Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain (16 October 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (twice) and was briefly ...
,
Lord Curzon
George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), styled Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and then Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman ...
and
R. A. Butler
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party politician. ''The Times'' obituary ...
, three men who came close to reaching the "top of the greasy pole" (
Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a centr ...
's phrase, applied by Thorpe to Home's ascent to the premiership). He was subsequently the official biographer of the former Foreign Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** In ...
of the House of Commons
Selwyn Lloyd
John Selwyn Brooke Lloyd, Baron Selwyn-Lloyd, (28 July 1904 – 18 May 1978) was a British politician. Born and raised in Cheshire, he was an active Liberal as a young man in the 1920s. In the following decade, he practised as a barrister and s ...
(1989) and of Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1996) and Sir Anthony Eden (2003).
Biographies of Selwyn Lloyd, Alec Douglas-Home, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan
As with Sir
Robert Rhodes James
Sir Robert Vidal Rhodes James (10 April 1933 – 20 May 1999) was a British historian, and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament.
Born in India, he was educated in England and attended ...
's earlier official biography of Eden (1986), Thorpe's, which was undertaken at the invitation of Eden's widow,
Clarissa
''Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady: Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life. And Particularly Shewing, the Distresses that May Attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, In Relation to Marriage'' is an epist ...
, in 1991, did much to restore Eden's reputation, which had suffered considerably in the aftermath of the
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
of 1956. Indeed, a feature of Thorpe’s biographical trilogy was that all three subjects, though having each held two of the three great offices of the British state (Eden and Home, in addition to being Prime Minister, both served more than one term as Foreign Secretary), tended, in retrospect, to be underestimated. Lloyd was remembered as Eden’s compliant Foreign Secretary at the time of Suez who, as Chancellor, was dismissed ignominiously by Harold Macmillan in a major Cabinet reshuffle (the so-called "
Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives (German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Ad ...
") in 1962; Home, then an
hereditary peer
The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of September 2022, there are 807 hereditary peers: 29 dukes (including five royal dukes), 34 marquesses, 190 earls, 111 viscounts, and 443 barons (disregarding subsid ...
, seemed to many an unlikely choice to succeed Macmillan as Prime Minister in 1963 and narrowly lost a general election less than a year later; and Eden, though widely admired for his work at the Foreign Office, attracted, after his short, but momentous premiership, the famous judgement of
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his t ...
on the Roman Emperor
Galba
Galba (; born Servius Sulpicius Galba; 24 December 3 BC – 15 January AD 69) was the sixth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 68 to 69. After his adoption by his stepmother, and before becoming emperor, he was known as Livius Ocella Sulpicius Ga ...
, ''Omnium consensu
capax imperii nisi imperasset
''Capax imperii nisi imperasset'' is a Latin phrase written by Tacitus in Chapter 1.49 of his '' Histories''.
Upon the death of Galba, Tacitus discusses Galba's life and character and ends Chapter 49 with this sentence: ''Maior privato visus du ...
'' ("All would have pronounced him worthy of empire if he had never been emperor").
After completing ''Eden'', Thorpe began work on a biography of Harold Macmillan, which was published by Chatto & Windus in 2010.
Gresham College , Home
/ref> It was described by Vernon Bogdanor
Vernon Bernard Bogdanor (; born 16 July 1943) is a British political scientist and historian, research professor at the Institute for Contemporary British History at King's College London and professor of politics at the New College of the Hu ...
, Professor of Government at Oxford University, as 'the best biography of a post-war British Prime Minister yet written.' The book was one of the six books (from a record 213 entries) shortlisted for the prestigious Orwell Prize
The Orwell Prize, based at University College London, is a British prize for political writing. The Prize is awarded by The Orwell Foundation, an independent charity (Registered Charity No 1161563, formerly "The Orwell Prize") governed by a boa ...
for political writing 2010, and in 2011 was awarded the biennial English Speaking Union
The English-Speaking Union (ESU) is an international educational membership organistation. Founded by the journalist Sir Evelyn Wrench in 1918, it aims to bring together and empower people of different languages and cultures, by building skill ...
Marsh Biography Award.
Awards and honours
*2011 Marsh Biography Award
{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022
The Marsh Biography Award was a British literary award, given to the author of the best biography written in the previous two years by a British author. It was established in 1987 and was presented biennially until ...
, ''Supermac: A Life of Harold Macmillan''
In 2013 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history.
Origins
The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...
(FRHistS).
Works
*''The Uncrowned Prime Ministers'' (1980)
*''Selwyn Lloyd'' (1989)
*''Alec Douglas-Home'' (1996)
*''Eden: The Life and Times Of Anthony Eden, First Earl of Avon 1897–1977'' (2003)
*''Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan'' (2010)
*''Who's In, Who's Out. The Journals of Kenneth Rose
Kenneth Vivian Rose (15 November 1924 – 28 January 2014) was a journalist and royal biographer in the United Kingdom. The son of Ada and Jacob Rosenwige, a Bradford Jewish surgeon, Rose was educated at Repton and New College, Oxford. He serv ...
. Vol. 1, 1944–1979'', editor (2018)
*''Who Wins, Who Loses. The Journals of Kenneth Rose. Vol. 2, 1979–2014'', editor (2019)
Notes
External links
The Papers of Richard Thorpe
held at Churchill Archives Centre
The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers of ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorpe, D. R.
1943 births
Living people
British biographers
People educated at Fettes College
Alumni of Selwyn College, Cambridge
Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge
Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford
Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford
People educated at the Royal Masonic School for Boys
Fellows of the Royal Historical Society