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 New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...

. He served in the Welsh Guards 1943–6 and was attached to Phantom, 1945. He did a brief spell of teaching as an Assistant Master at Eton College, 1948. His journalistic career began when he joined the Editorial Staff of the ''

Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

'', a position he held from 1952 to 1960. He founded and wrote the Albany Column, 1961–97, for the ''

Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...

''. Rose was an award-winning writer, having won the prestigious

Whitbread Book Award The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then ...

in the biography category in 1983 for his book, '' King George V''. He shared that award with Victoria Glendinning, who won for her book ''Vita''. He was appointed CBE in the

1997 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1997 were appointments by most of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other countries ...

. In April 2005, days before the wedding of

Prince Charles Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...

and Camilla Parker-Bowles, a British tabloid published that the couple were related, as ninth cousins, by way of the 2nd Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Rose said that, although the apparent familiarity between the two was not well established, a family connection was "perfectly factible". Two well-regarded volumes of Rose's journals edited by

DR Thorpe 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, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Macmillan. Education and academic career Tho ...

were published in 2018 and 2019. A review in ''The Spectator'' by distinguished biographer

Philip Ziegler Philip Sandeman Ziegler (born 24 December 1929) is a British biographer and historian. Background Born in Ringwood, Hampshire, Ziegler was educated at St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, and went with the school when it merged with Summer Fie ...

said: 'He was, of course, a snob — nobody could write a social column in the ''Sunday Telegraph'' for more than 50 years without some snobbish instincts — but he was an intelligent one, singularly well-informed, and capable from time to time of administering a sharp bite to the noble hands that fed him his material. It might reasonably be said that his contribution to social history is limited in its parameters, but it is a real contribution for all that. It is also great fun to read'.

Selected works

* ''Superior Person; a portrait of Curzon and his circle in late Victorian England'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1969) * ''The Later Cecils'' (1975) * ''William Harvey : a monograph'' (1978) * ''King George V'' (1983), awarded the Wolfson History Prize * ''Who’s Who in the Royal House of Windsor'' (1985) * ''Kings, Queens & Courtiers : intimate portraits of the Royal House of Windsor from its foundation to the present day'' (1985) * ''Elusive Rothschild: The Life of Victor, Third Baron'' (2003) * ''Who's In, Who's Out. The Journals of Kenneth Rose''. Vol. 1, 1944–1979. Edited by D. R. Thorpe (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2018) * ''Who Wins, Who Loses. The Journals of Kenneth Rose''. Vol. 2, 1979–2014. Edited by D. R. Thorpe (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2019)

References

External links

Whitbread awards
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rose, Kenneth 1924 births 2014 deaths British biographers Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Alumni of New College, Oxford