Fergus Nicoll is a British

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

and former

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

radio presenter.

Early life

Brought up as a Roman Catholic, Nicoll was educated at

Ampleforth College Ampleforth College is a co-educational Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging boarding and day school in the English Public school (United Kingdom), public school tradition. It opened in 1803 as a boys' school. It is near the villa ...

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

(BA Oriental Studies) and

Reading University The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christchurch College, Oxford, and became University College, ...

, where he graduated PhD with a thesis entitled "Gladstone, Gordon and Sudan, 1883-5".

Career

After working as a teacher in northern

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

, he began his career with the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in 1988 with the African Service. He moved to the BBC's

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Bureau in 1992 and spent three years (1996-9) as a World Affairs Correspondent, filing for the World Service and

BBC World BBC News is an international English-language pay television channel owned by BBC Global News Ltd. – a subsidiary of BBC Studios – and operated by the BBC News division of the BBC. The network carries news bulletins, documentaries, an ...

TV. In 1999-2000, he was Press Officer for

Olara Otunnu Olara A. Otunnu (born 6 September 1950) is a Ugandan politician, diplomat, and lawyer. He was President of the Uganda People's Congress (UPC), a political party, from 2010 to 2015 and stood as the party's candidate in the 2011 presidential elect ...

, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict. From 2001-12, he was a freelance presenter on the BBC World Service radio programme '' The World Today''. From August 2012-July 2013 he was Public Relations and Publications Manager at the

Rift Valley Institute The Rift Valley Institute (RVI) is an independent, non-profit research and training organisation working with communities and institutions in Eastern Africa, including Sudan, South Sudan, the Horn of Africa, and the Great Lakes region. Establish ...

. From April–June 2012, Dr Nicoll was the 2013 Sir William Luce Fellow at

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

, where he carried out research on the Da'irat al-Mahdi in Sudan. From September 2013 to August 2014 he worked in Doha, Qatar, as a Programme Editor and Executive Producer for

Al Jazeera English Al Jazeera English (AJE; , ) is a 24-hour English-language News broadcasting, news channel operating under Al Jazeera Media Network, which is funded by the government of Qatar. Al Jazeera introduced an English-language division in 2006. It is ...

. From 2014 to May 2022 he was based in London as a presenter on the BBC World Service radio programmes Business Matters and World Business Report.

Writing

In 2004, Nicoll published a biography of the Mahdi of Sudan, ''The Sword of the Prophet: The Mahdi of Sudan and the Death of General Gordon''. His second book, a biography of the

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

Emperor

Shah Jahan Shah Jahan I, (Shahab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram; 5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), also called Shah Jahan the Magnificent, was the Emperor of Hindustan from 1628 until his deposition in 1658. As the fifth Mughal emperor, his reign marked the ...

, was published by Haus Publishing in April 2009 as ''Shah Jahan: The Rise and Fall of the Mughal Emperor''. Penguin-India (under the Viking imprint) published the same volume in September 2009. Returning to Sudan studies, Nicoll published ''An Index to the Complete Works of al-Imam al-Mahdi'' in June 2009. The Abd-al-Karim Mirghani Cultural Centre in Omdurman followed this with the publication of an Arabic translation of ''The Mahdi of Sudan'' in October 2009, under the title ''Seif al-Nabi: Mahdi al-Sudan''. In September 2010, the Qasim Data Centre in Khartoum published Nicoll's ''Bibliography of the Mahdia''. In April 2013,

Pen & Sword Pen and Sword Books, also stylised as Pen & Sword, is a British publisher which specialises in printing and distributing books in both hardback and softback on military history, militaria and other niche subjects, primarily focused on the Unit ...

published his reappraisal of

British policy in Sudan British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

: ''Gladstone, Gordon and the Sudan Wars, 1883-5: The Battle over Imperial Intervention in the Victorian Age''. In July 2013, Durham University published his Luce Lecture as 'Da'irat al-Mahdi: Money, Faith and Politics in Sudan'. In late 2014, the Modestine Press in Milton Keynes published the first in a series of annotated editions of important primary sources relating to the Sudan wars: ''A Cool, Equable Judgement: The Sudan Journal of Lt.-Col. J. Donald Hamill-Stewart''. Nicoll's most recent peer-reviewed article is 'Fatwa and Propaganda: Contemporary Muslim Responses to the Sudanese Mahdiyya', published in ''Islamic Africa'' 7/2 (2016): 239-65. In 2017, the Modestine Press published the follow-up to the Stewart journal: ''A Perfect Pandemonium: The Khartoum Journal of Major-General Charles Gordon''. This is currently being translated into Arabic, again for the Abd-al-Karim Mirghani Cultural Centre. In 2018, Modestine produced Nicoll's third volume of primary sources: ''Fully Equal to the Occasion: Frank Power and the

Siege of Khartoum The siege of Khartoum (also known as the battle of Khartoum or fall of Khartoum) took place from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885. Mahdist State, Sudanese Mahdist forces captured the city of Khartoum, Sudan, from its Khedivate of Egypt, Egypti ...

''.

Awards

Sony Award The Radio Academy Awards, started in 1983, were the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. For most of their existence, they were run by ZAFER Associates, but in latter years were brought under the control of The Radio Academy ...

for "Best Breakfast Show" (1991) *

for "Best News & Current Affairs Programme" ('' The World Today'') (2009) *

Association for International Broadcasting Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

Award for "Clearest live news coverage - radio" (2012) for coverage of

South Sudan’s independence South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz' ...

for BBC World Service

References

External links

Fergus Nicoll
at

Penguin India Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a smal ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicoll, Fergus Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Alumni of the University of Reading BBC newsreaders and journalists BBC World News BBC World Service people Living people People educated at Ampleforth College Year of birth missing (living people)