Keith John Jeffery
MRIA (11 January 1952 – 12 February 2016) was a Northern Irish historian specialising in modern British, British Imperial, and Irish history.
Early life
He attended
Methodist College Belfast, where his father was vice principal.
Career
Having obtained his
BA,
MA, and PhD (1978) degrees from
St. John's College, Cambridge, the latter under the supervision of
John Andrew Gallagher, he was Professor of
British history at
Queen's University Belfast
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. In 1998, Jeffery served as the
Lees Knowles Lecturer
The Lees Knowles Lectureship was established at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1912 and first started in 1915. Lectures are given by distinguished experts in military and naval history and selection for this lectureship is considered one of the hig ...
at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
, and in 2003–4 the Parnell Fellow in Irish Studies at
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...
. He also held visiting positions at the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
, the
Australian Defence Force Academy
The Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) is a tri-service military Academy that provides military and academic education for junior officers of the Australian Defence Force in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army and Royal Aus ...
and
Deakin University.
Although much of his work was devoted to military history, his research more recently focused on the history of intelligence gathering. In 2005, he was commissioned by the British
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
(
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
) to write an authorised history for the organisation's centenary, covering its founding in 1909 up through to 1949. John Scarlett, head of MI6 at the end of that period, said credibility required that Jeffery be given unrestricted access the files for the relevant period (1900–1949). Scarlett also was quite adamant that if James Bond had been real, he would not have been an agent, but a ''case officer'', and that it was unthinkable that a mere agent would have so much autonomy, including a ''license to kill.'' It was published in 2010. A related study, ''
The Defence of the Realm
''The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5'', published in the United States as ''Defend the Realm'', is an authorised history of the British Security Service (MI5), written by historian Christopher Andrew. Andrew was commissi ...
: The Authorized History of
MI5'' by
Christopher Andrew was published in 2009. His ''1916: A Global History'', published in 2015, looked at how twelve events from different arenas of war, including the Irish rebellion, reverberated around the world. He died on 12 February 2016.
Selected bibliography
*''States of Emergency: British governments and strikebreaking since 1919'' (London, 1983) (co-editor with
Peter Hennessy
Peter John Hennessy, Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield, (born 28 March 1947) is an English historian and academic specialising in the history of government. Since 1992, he has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary Unive ...
)
*''The British Army and the crisis of Empire, 1918–1922'' (Manchester, 1984).
*''The Military Correspondence of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson'' (Army Record Society, 1985) (Edited).
*''Northern Ireland since 1968'' (Oxford, 1988) (co-author with Paul Arthur)
*''Men, Women, and War'' (Dublin, 1993) (co-editor with T. G. Fraser)
*''A military history of Ireland'' (Manchester, 1996) (co-editor with Thomas Bartlett)
*''An Irish empire? Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire'' (Manchester, 1996) (editor)
*''Ireland and the Great War'' (Cambridge, 2000)
*''The GPO and the Easter Rising'' (Dublin, 2006)
*''Field Marshal
Sir Henry Wilson: a political soldier'' (Oxford, 2006)
*''MI6: The history of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949'' (Bloomsbury, 2010) (published in the United States and Canada as ''The Secret History of MI6''
enguin Press, 2010
*''1916: A global history'' (Bloomsbury, 2015)
See also
*
British history
*
Irish history
The first evidence of human presence in Ireland dates to around 33,000 years ago, with further findings dating the presence of homo sapiens to around 10,500 to 7,000 BC. The receding of the ice after the Younger Dryas cold phase of the Quaterna ...
*
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
*
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
(
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
)
*
John Andrew Gallagher
*
Christopher Andrew
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jeffery, Keith
1952 births
2016 deaths
Academics of Queen's University Belfast
British historians
20th-century Irish historians
21st-century Irish historians
Members of the Royal Irish Academy
Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
People educated at Methodist College Belfast