Tom Stacey
Encyclopedia
Tom Stacey is a British novelist, publisher, man of letters (screenwriter
, foreign correspondent
), travel
ler/kingmaker
, and penologist.
, Bletchingley
, Surrey
, England
. He is the younger brother of Nicolas Stacey
. He attended Wellesley House School
(1938-43), originally at Broadstairs
, Kent
, England, but from September 1939 was evacuated to the Scottish Highlands
.
At Eton College
(1943-48) Stacey became a fourth-generation successive Stacey pupil at Eton, where he was a solo treble
, the founder of Wotton’s Society in the field of philosophy
, editor (with Douglas Hurd
) of the weekly Eton College Chronicle, winner of the Essay Prize, and House Captain.
At Scots Guards
(1948-50), in which he received his commission as Second Lieutenant
, on active service in what is now known as peninsular Malaysia, spent his leave with the Temiar aborigines in the jungle, and wrote his first book (The Hostile Sun).
At Worcester College
, Oxford
, England (1950-51), he founded and co-organised the controversial students’ tour operation, Undergrad Tours, during the 1951 Festival of Britain
year.
and Maurice Richardson. He then became feature writer and foreign correspondent for Picture Post
(1952-54). During 1954 he became a Daily Express
’ ‘Express Explorer’ in which he crossed Africa
overland from the Atlantic to East Africa, accompanied by Ugandan University of Cambridge
graduate Erisa Kironde, and lived with the Bakonzo people of the Ruwenzori Mountains.
He was then reporter and roving correspondent for the Montreal Star
(1955-56) before rejoining the Daily Express (London) in 1956-60 as foreign correspondent and diplomatic correspondent, including as America columnist in 1957. He joined The Sunday Times
as roving correspondent and chief foreign correspondent (1960-65), with a worldwide brief and covering the dismantling of British Empire
globally, and major conflict zones of the period, and interviewing many heads of state (including Nikita Khrushchev
, Morarji Desai
, Ayub Khan, Harold Macmillan
, and Éamon de Valera
).
He then moved to the (London) Evening Standard
(1965-67) while standing for Parliament
, where Stacey was a columnist and roving correspondent. Subsequent freelance assignments for contributions to The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Telegraph
, The Observer
, Daily Mail
, and The Spectator
etc. In all, Stacey has reported from over 120 countries, many of them several times.
.
From 1969-73 he was creator and joint managing director of Tom Stacey Ltd and subsidiaries (Tom Stacey Reprints, Tom Stacey Education Ltd), which published inter alia The 20-volume ‘Peoples of the Earth’ series conceived by Stacey, and the Prospect for Man ecological series.
From 1974 to the present day, he is founder of Stacey International
, which is a book publisher, originally majoring in the Middle East
and Islamic world
, since 2005 expanding into general book publishing and incorporating subsidiary imprints, notably Capuchin Classics.
); Sam, born 1966, a civil engineer
and mountaineer
; and Tomasina, born 1967. They have several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The couple live at Clementi House, Kensington Church Street, an early 18th century house which became Felix Mendelssohn’s music base during his early visits to London.
In October 1954, in Uganda, Stacey co-founded the Bakonzo Life History Research Society, which was to evolve as the vehicle of a recognized Kingdom of Rwenzururu 55 years later.
He contested the parliamentary seat of Hammersmith North for the Conservatives
in 1964, and was defeated; and of Dover
in 1966, where, again defeated, he increased the Party vote against a landslide to Labour
nationally. Re-adopted for Dover, he decided to quit active politics the following year to allow for his creative life.
In 1968 he jointly led the first water-borne expedition to explore the upper reaches of the Blue Nile
.
In 1974 he became a prison visitor
, following his own imprisonment (as a foreign correspondent) in India in 1965. He continued in the role ever since.
In 1981 he conceived the electronic tag for (appropriate) offenders, as an alternative to imprisonment, and in 1982 formed and launched the Offender’s Tag Association as a pressure group for the adoption and exploitation of the tag (a term adopted by Stacey from the inception of the scheme). Offender tagging has subsequently become widely used in penological reform in Britain and throughout the world. Stacey remains Director of the OTA.
In 1999 he conceived and organised ‘Pilgrimage 2000’, being the nationwide Christian
pilgrimage, starting at 8 sacred sites and converging upon Canterbury
to herald the new Millennium
.
In 2001 Stacey was the first man to ascend to the Ruwenzori glaciers following the defeat of the guerilla ADF.
In 2009 Tom Stacey was hailed by the 600,000 people of the Ruwenzori Mountains of central Africa as ‘catalytic agent’ in the recognition by the Government of Uganda of the King of their ethno-cultural entity, Rwenzururu.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977. His awards include the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and the (Granada) Foreign Correspondent of the Year Award (1961). Various of his novels have been Book of the Year choices by critics of national journals, including Decline (Sunday Telegraph), Tribe (TLS), and The Man Who Knew Everything (New Statesman). Most of his fiction has been separately published in the US, and some in translation. Work-in-progress includes 2 novels, and 2 further collections of long-short stories.
Profiles of Tom Stacey have been published in the Observer Magazine and elsewhere. His early fiction is assessed in Contemporary Novelists (St Martin's Press, New York, 1972).
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, foreign correspondent
Foreign correspondent
Foreign Correspondent may refer to:*Foreign correspondent *Foreign Correspondent , an Alfred Hitchcock film*Foreign Correspondent , an Australian current affairs programme...
), travel
Travel
Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...
ler/kingmaker
Kingmaker
Kingmaker is a term originally applied to the activities of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick — "Warwick the Kingmaker" — during the Wars of the Roses in England. The term has come to be applied more generally to a person or group that has great influence in a royal or political succession,...
, and penologist.
Early life
Born on 11 January 1930, in the Manor HouseManor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
, Bletchingley
Bletchingley
Bletchingley is a village in Surrey, England. It is on the A25 road to the east of Redhill and to the west of Godstone.-History:The village lay within the Anglo-Saxon administrative division of Tandridge hundred....
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He is the younger brother of Nicolas Stacey
Nicolas Stacey
Rev. Nicolas David Stacey is a priest of the Church of England and social activist. He was Rector of Woolwich in the 1960s, and Director of Social Services for Kent County Council from 1974-1985.-Early life:...
. He attended Wellesley House School
Wellesley House School
-History:It was first established as 1866 as Conyngham House in Ramsgate with the first of the buildings on the present site being built 1898. During the Second World War the British Army used the school buildings while the school was temporarily housed at Rannoch. In 1969 the amalgamation with St...
(1938-43), originally at Broadstairs
Broadstairs
Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about south-east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St. Peter's and had a population in 2001 of about 24,000. Situated between Margate and...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England, but from September 1939 was evacuated to the Scottish Highlands
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
.
At Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
(1943-48) Stacey became a fourth-generation successive Stacey pupil at Eton, where he was a solo treble
Boy soprano
A boy soprano is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range. Although a treble, or choirboy, may also be considered to be a boy soprano, the more colloquial term boy soprano is generally only used for boys who sing, perform, or record as soloists, and who may not necessarily...
, the founder of Wotton’s Society in the field of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, editor (with Douglas Hurd
Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC , is a British Conservative politician and novelist, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and his retirement in 1995....
) of the weekly Eton College Chronicle, winner of the Essay Prize, and House Captain.
At Scots Guards
Scots Guards
The Scots Guards is a regiment of the Guards Division of the British Army, whose origins lie in the personal bodyguard of King Charles I of England and Scotland...
(1948-50), in which he received his commission as Second Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
, on active service in what is now known as peninsular Malaysia, spent his leave with the Temiar aborigines in the jungle, and wrote his first book (The Hostile Sun).
At Worcester College
Worcester College, Oxford
Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in the eighteenth century, but its predecessor on the same site had been an institution of learning since the late thirteenth century...
, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, England (1950-51), he founded and co-organised the controversial students’ tour operation, Undergrad Tours, during the 1951 Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
year.
Journalistic career
He was staff writer at the Lilliput Magazine (1951-2), as a colleague of Patrick CampbellPatrick Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy
Patrick Gordon Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy , known as Patrick Campbell, was an Irish journalist, humorist and television personality....
and Maurice Richardson. He then became feature writer and foreign correspondent for Picture Post
Picture Post
Picture Post was a prominent photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months...
(1952-54). During 1954 he became a Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
’ ‘Express Explorer’ in which he crossed Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
overland from the Atlantic to East Africa, accompanied by Ugandan University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
graduate Erisa Kironde, and lived with the Bakonzo people of the Ruwenzori Mountains.
He was then reporter and roving correspondent for the Montreal Star
Montreal Star
The Montreal Star was an English-language Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It folded in 1979 following an eight-month pressmen's strike....
(1955-56) before rejoining the Daily Express (London) in 1956-60 as foreign correspondent and diplomatic correspondent, including as America columnist in 1957. He joined The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
as roving correspondent and chief foreign correspondent (1960-65), with a worldwide brief and covering the dismantling of British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
globally, and major conflict zones of the period, and interviewing many heads of state (including Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
, Morarji Desai
Morarji Desai
Morarji Ranchhodji Desai was an Indian independence activist and the fourth Prime Minister of India from 1977–79. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who did not belong to the Indian National Congress...
, Ayub Khan, Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
, and Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
).
He then moved to the (London) Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
(1965-67) while standing for Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
, where Stacey was a columnist and roving correspondent. Subsequent freelance assignments for contributions to The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, and The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
etc. In all, Stacey has reported from over 120 countries, many of them several times.
Publishing career
From 1967-70 he was editor and creator of Correspondents World Wide, a current affairs service for schools and universities, the company being sold to Pergamon PressPergamon Press
Pergamon Press was an Oxford-based publishing house, founded by Paul Rosbaud and Robert Maxwell, which published scientific and medical books and journals. It is now an imprint of Elsevier....
.
From 1969-73 he was creator and joint managing director of Tom Stacey Ltd and subsidiaries (Tom Stacey Reprints, Tom Stacey Education Ltd), which published inter alia The 20-volume ‘Peoples of the Earth’ series conceived by Stacey, and the Prospect for Man ecological series.
From 1974 to the present day, he is founder of Stacey International
Stacey International
Stacey International is an independent publisher based at 128 Church Street, Kensington in London. Founded in 1974 by Tom Stacey, the company aims to "maintain a resolute tradition of adaptive and imaginative publishing". Originally focusing on the Middle East and Islamic world, since 2005 have...
, which is a book publisher, originally majoring in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and Islamic world
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, since 2005 expanding into general book publishing and incorporating subsidiary imprints, notably Capuchin Classics.
Personal life, politics and penology
He married Caroline Clay, in January 1952, who was to become a notable sculptor, mostly in clay for bronze, and exhibiting widely at home and abroad. The couple have had 5 children (Emma, born 1952; Tilly, born 1954; Isabella, born 1957 (married to Christopher Simon Sykes, the photographer and biographer), who as an international stage and opera designer works as Isabella Bywater (being the name of her first husband Michael BywaterMichael Bywater
Michael Bywater is a British writer and broadcaster.-Biography:He was educated at Nottingham High School, an independent school...
); Sam, born 1966, a civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
and mountaineer
Mountaineer
-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...
; and Tomasina, born 1967. They have several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The couple live at Clementi House, Kensington Church Street, an early 18th century house which became Felix Mendelssohn’s music base during his early visits to London.
In October 1954, in Uganda, Stacey co-founded the Bakonzo Life History Research Society, which was to evolve as the vehicle of a recognized Kingdom of Rwenzururu 55 years later.
He contested the parliamentary seat of Hammersmith North for the Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
in 1964, and was defeated; and of Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
in 1966, where, again defeated, he increased the Party vote against a landslide to Labour
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...
nationally. Re-adopted for Dover, he decided to quit active politics the following year to allow for his creative life.
In 1968 he jointly led the first water-borne expedition to explore the upper reaches of the Blue Nile
Blue Nile
The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. With the White Nile, the river is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile...
.
In 1974 he became a prison visitor
Prison visitor
A prison visitor is a person who visits prisons to monitor the welfare of prisoners in general, as distinct from a person who visits a specific prisoner to whom they have a connection. Many prisons have a visiting committee. There are voluntary organisations of prison visitors in many...
, following his own imprisonment (as a foreign correspondent) in India in 1965. He continued in the role ever since.
In 1981 he conceived the electronic tag for (appropriate) offenders, as an alternative to imprisonment, and in 1982 formed and launched the Offender’s Tag Association as a pressure group for the adoption and exploitation of the tag (a term adopted by Stacey from the inception of the scheme). Offender tagging has subsequently become widely used in penological reform in Britain and throughout the world. Stacey remains Director of the OTA.
In 1999 he conceived and organised ‘Pilgrimage 2000’, being the nationwide Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
pilgrimage, starting at 8 sacred sites and converging upon Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
to herald the new Millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....
.
In 2001 Stacey was the first man to ascend to the Ruwenzori glaciers following the defeat of the guerilla ADF.
In 2009 Tom Stacey was hailed by the 600,000 people of the Ruwenzori Mountains of central Africa as ‘catalytic agent’ in the recognition by the Government of Uganda of the King of their ethno-cultural entity, Rwenzururu.
Literary work
Tom Stacey's novel Deadline was filmed to his own screenplay in 1989, starring John Hurt and Imogen Stubbs.He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977. His awards include the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and the (Granada) Foreign Correspondent of the Year Award (1961). Various of his novels have been Book of the Year choices by critics of national journals, including Decline (Sunday Telegraph), Tribe (TLS), and The Man Who Knew Everything (New Statesman). Most of his fiction has been separately published in the US, and some in translation. Work-in-progress includes 2 novels, and 2 further collections of long-short stories.
Profiles of Tom Stacey have been published in the Observer Magazine and elsewhere. His early fiction is assessed in Contemporary Novelists (St Martin's Press, New York, 1972).