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John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich, (15 September 1929 – 1 June 2018), known as John Julius Norwich, was an English
popular historian
Popular history is a broad genre of historiography that takes a popular approach, aims at a wide readership, and usually emphasizes narrative, personality and vivid detail over scholarly analysis. The term is used in contradistinction to professio ...
, travel writer, and television personality.
[
]
Background
Norwich was born at the Alfred House Nursing Home on
Portland Place in
Marylebone
Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary.
An ancient parish and latterly a metropolitan borough, it me ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, on 15 September 1929.
He was the son of Conservative politician and diplomat
Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.
First elected to Parliament in 19 ...
, later Viscount Norwich, and of
Lady Diana Manners
Diana, Viscountess Norwich (née Lady Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners; 29 August 1892 – 16 June 1986) was an English actress and aristocrat who was a well-known social figure in London and Paris.
As a young woman, she moved in a celebrat ...
, a celebrated beauty and society figure.
He was given the name "Julius" in part because he was born by
caesarean section. Such was his mother's fame as an actress and beauty that the birth attracted a crowd outside the nursing home and hundreds of letters of congratulations.
Through his father, he was descended from King
William IV
William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...
and his mistress
Dorothea Jordan
Dorothea Jordan, née Bland (21 November 17615 July 1816), was an Anglo-Irish actress, as well as a courtesan. She was the long-time mistress of Prince William, Duke of Clarence, later William IV, and the mother of ten illegitimate children by ...
.
He was educated at Egerton House School in
Dorset Square
Dorset Square is a garden square in Marylebone, London. All buildings fronting it are terraced houses and listed, in the mainstream (initial) category. It takes up the site of Lord's (MCC's) Old Cricket Ground, which lasted 23 years until the ...
, London, later becoming a boarder at the school when it was evacuated to
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by
two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
before the outbreak of the Second World War. Because his father as
Minister of Information
An information minister (also called minister of information) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with information matters; it is often linked with censorship and propaganda. Sometimes the position is given to ...
was high on the Nazi enemies list of British politicians, Norwich's parents feared for their son's safety in the event of a German invasion of Britain. In 1940 they decided to send him away after the
US ambassador to Britain
The United States ambassador to the United Kingdom (known formally as the ambassador of the United States to the Court of St James's) is the official representative of the president of the United States and the American government to the monarc ...
,
Joseph P. Kennedy
Joseph Patrick Kennedy (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was an American businessman, investor, and politician. He is known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children and was the patriarch of the Irish-American Ken ...
, offered to bring him to the United States with other
evacuee children on board the
SS ''Washington''. He attended
Upper Canada College
Upper Canada College (UCC) is an elite, all-boys, private school in Toronto, Ontario, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The college is widely described as the country's most prestigious preparatory school, and has produce ...
,
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
, Canada, while spending his holidays with the family of
William S. Paley
William Samuel Paley (September 28, 1901 – October 26, 1990) was an American businessman, primarily involved in the media, and best known as the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System ( CBS) from a small radio network into ...
on
Long Island in New York. In 1942 he returned to Britain, where he attended
Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...
and the
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers.
The French university traces its history to the ea ...
.
He completed his
national service
National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939.
The ...
in the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
before taking a degree in French and Russian at
New College, Oxford.
Career
Joining the
British Foreign Service after Oxford, John Julius Cooper served in
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
and
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
and as a member of the British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
. On his father's death in 1954, he inherited the title of
Viscount Norwich
Viscount Norwich, of Aldwick in the Sussex, County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 5 July 1952 for the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician, author and former List of Ambassadors from th ...
, created for his father,
Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.
First elected to Parliament in 19 ...
, in 1952. This gave him a right to sit in the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
, though he lost this right with the
House of Lords Act 1999
The House of Lords Act 1999 (c. 34) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. The Act was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. For centuries, the House of Lords ...
.
In 1964, Norwich left the diplomatic service to become a writer. His subsequent books included histories of
Sicily under the Normans (1967, 1970),
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
(1977, 1981), the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
(1988, 1992, 1995), the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
(2006) and the
Papacy
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
(2011), amongst others (see list below). He also served as editor of series such as ''Great Architecture of the World'', ''The Italian World'', ''The New Shell Guides to Great Britain'', ''The Oxford Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Art'' and the ''Duff Cooper Diaries''.
Norwich worked extensively in radio and television. He was host of the
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. ...
...
radio panel game ''
My Word!
''My Word!'' is a British radio quiz panel game broadcast by the BBC on the Home Service (1956–67) and Radio 4 (1967–88). It was created by Edward J. Mason and Tony Shryane, and featured the humorous writers Frank Muir and Denis Norde ...
'' for four years (1978–82) and also a regional contestant on ''
Round Britain Quiz
''Round Britain Quiz'' (or ''RBQ'' for short) is a panel game that has been broadcast on BBC Radio since 1947, making it the oldest quiz still broadcast on British radio. It was based on a format called ''Transatlantic Quiz'', a contest betwee ...
''. He wrote and presented some 30 television documentaries, including ''The
Fall of Constantinople'', ''Napoleon's Hundred Days'', ''
Cortés and
Montezuma'', ''The Antiquities of
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
'', ''The Gates of Asia'', ''
Maximilian of Mexico
Maximilian I (german: Ferdinand Maximilian Josef Maria von Habsburg-Lothringen, link=no, es, Fernando Maximiliano José María de Habsburgo-Lorena, link=no; 6 July 1832 – 19 June 1867) was an Austrian archduke who reigned as the only Emperor ...
'', ''
Toussaint l'Ouverture
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (; also known as Toussaint L'Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda; 20 May 1743 – 7 April 1803) was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution. During his life, Louverture ...
of
Haiti'', ''The
Knights of Malta'', ''
Treasure Houses of Britain'', and ''The Death of the
Prince Imperial in the
Zulu War
The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Following the passing of the British North America Act of 1867 forming a federation in Canada, Lord Carnarvon thought that a similar political effort, coup ...
''.
Norwich also worked for various charitable projects. He was the chairman of the
Venice in Peril Fund
Venice in Peril Fund CIO is a British registered charity. It raises funds to restore and conserve the art and architecture of Venice, and to investigate ways to protect them against future risks, particularly rising sea levels. Although it fo ...
, honorary chairman of the
World Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and trainin ...
, a member of the General Committee of
Save Venice, and a vice-president of the
National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies. For many years he was a member of the Executive Committee of the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
, and also served on the board of the
English National Opera
English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in English ...
. Norwich was also a patron of SHARE Community, which provides vocational training to disabled people.
''Christmas Crackers''
''Christmas Crackers'' were compiled from whatever attracted Norwich: letters and diaries and gravestones and poems, boastful ''
Who's Who'' entries, indexes from biographies, word games such as palindromes,
holorhymes and mnemonics, occasionally in untranslated Greek, French, Latin, German or whatever language they were sourced from, as well as such oddities as a review from the American outdoors magazine ''Field and Stream'' concerning the republication of ''
Lady Chatterley's Lover''.
His final ''Christmas Cracker'' was the 49th. It was put together during the early part of 2018 and he corrected the final proofs from his hospital bed before he died on 1 June 2018.
Personal life and death
Norwich's first wife was Anne Frances May Clifford, daughter of the Hon. Sir
Bede Clifford
Captain Sir Bede Edmund Hugh Clifford (3 July 1890 – 6 October 1969) was a British diplomat and colonial administrator, born in New Zealand, where his parents had moved in an unsuccessful attempt at sheep-farming.
His parents were William Hug ...
; they had one daughter, the Hon.
Artemis Cooper, a historian, and a son, the Hon. Jason Charles Duff Bede Cooper, an architect. After their divorce, Norwich married his second wife, the Hon. Mary (Makins) Philipps, daughter of
The 1st Baron Sherfield.
Norwich was also the father of
Allegra Huston
Allegra Huston (born 26 August 1964) is a British-American author, editor and writer based in Taos, New Mexico. She is the author of ''Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found'', the novel ''A Stolen Summer'' (''Say My Name'' in hardback ...
, born of his affair with the American ballet dancer
Enrica Soma
Enrica Georgia Soma (May 9, 1929 – January 29, 1969) was an American socialite, model, and prima ballerina. She was also the wife of director John Huston and mother of their three children.
Life and career
Soma was born in Manhattan, New York, ...
while she was married to the American film director
John Huston.
Norwich lived for much of his life in a large detached Victorian house in
Warwick Avenue, in the heart of
Little Venice
Little Venice is a district in West London, England, around the junction of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, the Regent's Canal, and the entrance to Paddington Basin. The junction forms a triangular shape basin. Many of the buildi ...
in
Maida Vale
Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale is ...
, London, very close to
Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in e ...
.
Norwich died aged 88 on 1 June 2018.
[
]
Titles, styles, honours and arms
*1929–1952: John Julius Cooper
*1952–1954: ''The Honourable'' John Julius Cooper
*1954–2018: ''The Right Honourable'' The Viscount Norwich
Norwich was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order
The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, or ...
as a Commander in 1992 by Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
, as part of the celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of her accession.
Ancestry
Works
*'' Mount Athos'' (jointly with Reresby Sitwell), Hutchinson, 1966
*''The Normans in the South, 1016–1130'', Longman, 1967. Also published by Harper & Row with the title ''The Other Conquest''
*''Sahara'', Longman, 1968
*''The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130–1194'', Longman, 1970.
*''Great Architecture of the World'', Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, 1975
*''Venice: The Rise to Empire'', Allen Lane, 1977
*''Venice: The Greatness and Fall'', Allen Lane, 1981
*'' A History of Venice'', Knopf, 1982 / Penguin, 1983 , single-volume combined edition
*''Britain's Heritage'' (editor), HaperCollins, 1983
*''The Italian World: History, Art and the Genius of a People'' (editor), Thames & Hudson, 1983,
*''Hashish'' (photographs by Suomi La Valle, historical profile by John Julius Norwich), Quartet Books, 1984,
*''The Architecture of Southern England'', Macmillan, 1985,
*''Fifty Years of Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne () is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hun ...
'', Cape, 1985,
*''A Taste for Travel'', Macmillan, 1985,
*'' Byzantium: The Early Centuries'', Viking, 1988,
*''Venice: a Traveller's Companion'' (an anthology compiled by Lord Norwich), Constable, 1990,
*''Oxford Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Art'' (editor) Oxford, 1990
*''The Normans in the South'' and ''The Kingdom in the Sun'', on Norman Sicily
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
, later republished as ''The Normans in Sicily'', Penguin, 1992 (The Normans in the South, 1016–1130; originally published:- Harlow:Longman,1967—The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130–1194; originally published:- Harlow:Longman, 1970)
*''Byzantium; v. 2: The Apogee'', Alfred A. Knopf, 1992,
*''Byzantium; v. 3: The Decline and Fall'', Viking, 1995,
*''A Short History of Byzantium
''A Short History of Byzantium'' (1997) is a history of the Byzantine Empire by historian John Julius Norwich. It is a condensed version of his earlier three-volume work on the same subject, published from 1988 to 1995 in 1200 pages, which is ap ...
'', Alfred A. Knopf, 1997,
*''The Twelve Days of Christmas (Correspondence)
''The Twelve Days of Christmas orrespondence', also called ''Twelve Days of Christmas, A Correspondence'', is a 1998 monologue book by John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich, and illustrated by Quentin Blake. It was published by Atlantic Bo ...
'' (illustrated by Quentin Blake
Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, (born 16 December 1932) is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his ...
), Doubleday, 1998 (spoof of the old favourite carol, "The Twelve Days of Christmas"),
*'' Shakespeare's Kings: the Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337–1485'', New York: Scribner, 2000,
*''Treasures of Britain'' (editor), Everyman Publishers, 2002,
*''Paradise of Cities, Venice and its Nineteenth-century Visitors'', Viking/Penguin, 2003,
*''The Duff Cooper Diaries'' (editor), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006,
*''The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean'', Doubleday, 2006,
*''Trying to Please'' (autobiography), Wimborne Minster, Dovecote Press, 2008,
*''Christmas Crackers'' (anecdotes, trivia and witticisms collected from history and literature)
*''More Christmas Crackers''
*''The Big Bang: Christmas Crackers, 2000–2009'', Dovecote Press, 2010,
*''The Great Cities in History'' (editor), Thames and Hudson, 2009,
*'' Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy'', Random House, 2011, (US title for ''The Popes: A History'')
*''The Popes: A History'', Chatto & Windus, 2011, (UK title for ''Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy'')
*''A History of England in 100 Places: From Stonehenge to the Gherkin'', John Murray, 2012,
*''Darling Monster: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to Her Son John Julius Norwich'' (editor), Chatto & Windus, 2013,
*''Cities That Shaped the Ancient World'' (editor), Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2014,
*''Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History'', Random House, 2015,
*''Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe'', John Murray, 2016,
*''France: A History: from Gaul to de Gaulle'', John Murray, 2018,
*''A History of France'', Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018,
*''A Christmas Cracker being a commonplace selection'', 2018,
References
Sources
* Leaders & Legends: John Julius Norwich (In: ''Old Times''; Winter/Spring, 2008)
External links
*
Penguin books
short biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norwich, John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount
1929 births
2018 deaths
British expatriates in France
English expatriates in Canada
English travel writers
English radio personalities
English television personalities
Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London
Alumni of New College, Oxford
People educated at Eton College
Upper Canada College alumni
Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order
Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
British Byzantinists
21st-century British writers
20th-century English historians
21st-century British historians
Historians of the Mediterranean
Historians of Sicily
English male non-fiction writers
British writers
Scholars of Byzantine history