Jasper Godwin Ridley was a British writer, known for historical biographies. He received the 1970 James Tait Black Memorial Prize

James Tait Black Memorial Prize

Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...

 for his biography Lord Palmerston.

He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

 and the Sorbonne

University of Paris

The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

. He trained and practiced as a barrister

Barrister

A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

, before starting to write. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, he was a conscientious objector

Conscientious objector

A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....

 and was, by his own account, violently abused while in a detention camp. He served on St Pancras Borough Council from 1945–49, and stood, unsuccessfully, as Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 candidate for Winchester in 1955

United Kingdom general election, 1955

The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election. It resulted in a substantially increased majority of 60 for the Conservative government under new leader and prime minister Sir Anthony Eden against Labour Party, now in their 20th year...

.

Works

• The Tate Gallery's Wartime Acquisitions (1942)
• The Law of the Carriage of Goods by Land, Sea and Air (1957)
• Nicholas Ridley (1957)
• Thomas Cranmer (1962)
• John Knox (1968)
• Lord Palmerston (1970)
• Garibaldi (1974)
• The Roundheads (1976)
• Napoleon III and Eugénie (1979)
• The History of England (1981)
• Statesman and the Fanatic: Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More (1982)
• Life and Times of Mary Tudor (1973)
• Henry VIII the Politics of Tyranny (1984)
• The Tudor Age (1988)
• The Love Letters of Henry VIII (1988) editor
• Elizabeth I: the Shrewdness of Virtue (1988)
• Maximilian & Juarez (1992)
• Tito (1994)
• A History of the Carpenters' Company (1995)
• Mussolini (1997)
• The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society (1999)
• The Houses of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: A Royal History of England (2000) with John Clarke
• Bloody Mary's Martyrs: The Story of England’s Terror (2001)
• A Brief History of The Tudor Age (2002)

External links

• Obituary in the Daily Telegraph, 8 July 2004
• http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext17/Mildiscp.html