Richard Peter Treadwell Davenport-Hines (born 21 June 1953 in London) is a British historian and

literary biographer When studying literature, biography and its relationship to literature is often a subject of literary criticism, and is treated in several different forms. Two scholarly approaches use biography or biographical approaches to the past as a tool for ...

, is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Early life

Davenport-Hines was educated at

St Paul's School, London (''By Faith and By Learning'') , established = , closed = , type = Independent school Public school , religion = Church of England , president = , h ...

, 1967- 71and

Selwyn College, Cambridge Selwyn College, Cambridge (formally Selwyn College in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1882 by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of George Augustus Selwyn ( ...

(which he entered as Corfield Exhibitioner in 1972 and left in 1977 after completing a PhD thesis on the history of British armaments companies during 1918–36). He was a research fellow at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

(1982–86), where he headed a research project on the globalisation of pharmaceutical companies. He was joint winner of the Wolfson Prize for History and Biography in 1985 and winner of the Wadsworth Prize for Business History in 1986. He now writes and reviews in a number of literary journals, including the ''

Literary Review ''Literary Review'' is a British literary magazine founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the Department of English at the University of Edinburgh. Its offices are on Lexington Street in Soho. The magazine was edited for fourteen years by v ...

'' and ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

''. He is an adviser to the Oxford ''

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'', to which (as of December 2022) he has contributed 169 biographies. During 2016, he was visiting fellow at

All Souls College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of ...

Selwyn College Gatehouse Tower, Cambridge, UK - Diliff

Career

He was a trustee of the London Library between 1996 and 2005, and was on the committee of the

Royal Literary Fund The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a benevolent fund that gives assistance to published British writers in financial difficulties. Founded in 1790, and granted a royal charter in 1818, the Fund has helped an extensive roll of authors through its long ...

from 2008 to 2018. He is a member of the

Athenaeum Club, London The Athenaeum is a private members' club in London, founded in 1824. It is primarily a club for men and women with intellectual interests, and particularly (but not exclusively) for those who have attained some distinction in science, engineerin ...

Brooks's Club Brooks's is a gentlemen's club in St James's Street, London. It is one of the oldest and most exclusive gentlemen's clubs in the world. History In January 1762, a private society was established at 50 Pall Mall by Messrs. Boothby and James ...

and a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, ele ...

since and the

Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...

since 1984. He was chairman of the judges of the Biographers’ Club Prize in 2008, and of the judges of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History in 2010. He is also one of the judges of the Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize for Poetry awarded annually since 2009 to members of

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

– named in commemoration of his son who died on 9 June 2008 aged 21. He also inaugurated the Cosmo Davenport-Hines Memorial Lecture given 2010 - 2015 under the joint auspices of

and the

. He was a leading signatory to a letter in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' urging Britain to remain in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

during the membership referendum of 2016.

Essays

He has contributed to several volumes of historical or literary essays. These include an essay on English and French armaments dealers operating in eastern Europe in the 1920s in Maurice Lévy-Leboyer, Helga Nussbaum and

Alice Teichova Alice Teichova (''née'' Schwarz)Richard EvansMikuláš Teich obituary: Scholar who focused on the history of science 5 September 2018. (19 September 1920 – 12 March 2015) was an Austrian-born British economist and economic historian. She was co ...

(editors), ''Historical Studies in International Corporate Business'' (1989); an essay on HIV in

Roy Porter Roy Sydney Porter, FBA (31 December 1946 – 3 March 2002) was a British historian known for his work on the history of medicine. He retired in 2001 from the director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at University College ...

and Mikulas Teich (editors), ''Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science'' (1994); a historical critique of drugs prohibition laws in Selina Chen and Edward Skidelsky, ''High Time for Reform'' (2001); a chapter in the ''Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden'' (2005); and a memoir in Peter Stanford (editor), ''The Death of a Child'' (2011).

Works

*''

Dudley Docker Frank Dudley Docker (26 August 1862 – 8 July 1944) was an English businessman and financier. He also played first-class cricket for Derbyshire in 1881 and 1882. Biography Family background, early life and education Docker was born at Paxt ...

: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior'' (Cambridge University Press, 1984) *''Markets and Bagmen, Studies in the History of Marketing and British Industrial Performance, 1830–1939'' (Ashgate, 1986) editor *''Speculators and Patriots: Essays in Business Biography'' (Cass, 1986) *''Business in the Age of Reason'' (Cass, 1987) editor with Jonathan Liebenau *''Enterprise Management and Innovation'' (Cass, 1988) editor with Geoffrey Jones *''British Business in Asia Since 1860'' (Cambridge University Press, 1989) editor with Geoffrey Jones *''The End of Insularity – Essays in Comparative Business History'' (Cass, 1989) editor with Geoffrey Jones *''Business in the Age of Depression & War'' (Cass, 1990) editor *''Capital Entrepreneurs and Profits'' (Cass, 1990) editor *''Sex , Death and Punishment: Attitudes To Sex & Sexuality In Britain Since The Renaissance '' (Collins, 1990) *''Glaxo A History to 1962'' (Cambridge University Press, 1992) with Judy Slinn *''The Macmillans'' (Heinemann, 1992) *''Vice – An Anthology'' (Hamish Hamilton, 1993) *''Auden'' (Heinemann, 1995) *''Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin'' (Fourth Estate, 1998) *''The Pursuit of Oblivion: A global history of narcotics 1500–2000'' (Weidenfeld, 2001) *''A Night at the Majestic'' (Faber, 2006)/ (in USA, ''Proust at the Majestic'') *''Ettie – the Intimate Life and Dauntless Spirit of Lady Desborough'' (Weidenfeld, 2008) *''

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, Unite ...

Lives: Migrants and Millionaires, Conmen and Crew'' (HarperCollins, 2012) *''An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo'' (HarperCollins, 2013) *''Universal Man: The Seven Lives of John Maynard Keynes'' (Collins, 2015) *''Edward VII: the Cosmopolitan King'' (Penguin, 2016) *''Enemies Within: Communists, the Cambridge Spies and the Making of Modern Britain'' (HarperCollins, 2018) *(edited) Hugh Trevor-Roper, Letters from Oxford: to Bernard Berenson (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006). *(edited) Hugh Trevor-Roper, Wartime Journals (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012). *(edited with Adam Sisman) One Hundred Letters from Hugh Trevor-Roper (Oxford University Press, 2014). *John Meade Falkner: Abnormal Romantic (London: Roxburghe Club, 2018).. *(edited) Hugh Trevor-Roper, China Journals: Ideology and Intrigue in the 1960s (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). *Conservative Thinkers from All Souls College, Oxford (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2022)https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2j04swb

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davenport-Hines, Richard 1953 births Living people British biographers People educated at St Paul's School, London Alumni of Selwyn College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature