Henry Francis Mount (born 1971) 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

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

, who is the editor of ''

The Oldie ''The Oldie'' is a British monthly magazine written for older people "as a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity", according to its website. The magazine was launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who was its edit ...

'' magazine, and a frequent contributor to the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

'' and ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

''.

Early life

Harry Mount was born in 1971. His father, Sir Ferdinand Mount, Bt,

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

, is also a journalist, and was an advisor to Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...

. One of his second

cousin A cousin is a relative who is the child of a parent's sibling; this is more specifically referred to as a first cousin. A parent of a first cousin is an aunt or uncle. More generally, in the kinship system used in the English-speaking world, ...

s is the former British prime minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...

. Mount was educated at the North Bridge House School in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, followed by

Westminster School Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as do ...

, where he was an Honorary Scholar. He then read

Ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient h ...

and

Modern History The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500, ...

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

, graduating with a

first First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

. At

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

he was a member of the

Bullingdon Club The Bullingdon Club is a private all-male dining club for Oxford University students. It is known for its wealthy members, grand banquets, and bad behaviour, including vandalism of restaurants and students' rooms. The club selects its members ...

.Lauren Collins
"Young Fogy"
''The New Yorker'', 10 December 2007 Mount pursued

postgraduate studies Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor' ...

Architectural History The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelt ...

at the

Courtauld Institute The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. The art collection is known particularly for ...

, receiving an additional MA degree; he then qualified as a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

, but failed to secure a tenancy in chambers following his pupillage. He also briefly worked as a banker.

Career

Harry Mount is editor of ''

'', a British monthly

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

founded in 1992 by

Richard Ingrams Richard Reid Ingrams (born 19 August 1937) is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine ''Private Eye'', and founding editor of ''The Oldie'' magazine. He left the latter job at the end of May 2014.B ...

. Ingrams was succeeded in 2014 by Alexander Chancellor, and Mount took over after Chancellor's death in 2017. Mount has worked as a leader writer and a

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

correspondent for ''

''. He previously had a regular column at the same paper. Mount has written extensively for ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'' since 2002, and for the ''

Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...

'' since 2012. In 2022, Mount was appointed an Independent Member of the

House of Lords Appointments Commission The House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) is an independent advisory non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom with oversight of some aspects of the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It has two roles: to recommend at least two peopl ...

during

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...

's final days in office. The appointment was criticised by Labour's

deputy leader A deputy leader (in Scottish English, sometimes depute leader) in the Westminster system is the second-in-command of a political party, behind the party leader. Deputy leaders often become Deputy prime minister when their parties are elected to go ...

Angela Rayner Angela Rayner (' Bowen; born 28 March 1980) is a British politician who has served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government since 2024 United Kingdom general election, Jul ...

, who called it "a display of pure arrogance by Boris Johnson, putting his own leading crony in charge of stopping cronyism in parliament".

Controversy

As a member of the

, Mount enjoyed a certain notoriety after being rolled down a hill in a portable toilet. "It was like coming out of

Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...

's coffin", he told ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' in 2007. After Mount wrote in ''

'' (2004) lamenting the supposed demise of Classics teaching in the UK, and dismissing the ''

Cambridge Latin Course The Cambridge Latin Course (CLC) is a series of textbooks published by Cambridge University Press, used to teach Latin to secondary school pupils. It provides a grounding in vocabulary, grammar and sense which allows progression through Common ...

'', ''The Spectator'' published a riposte from the Dean of Wadham, James Morwood, saying: "His denunciation of the ''Cambridge Latin Course'' as 'the evil Latin-for-idiots school textbooks' is blind to the fact that it was this very course which rescued Latin from an apparently terminal decline in the 1960s." Also in 2004, he attracted some mild comment for refusing to review David Mitchell's widely acclaimed ''

Cloud Atlas A cloud atlas is a pictorial key (or an atlas) to the nomenclature of clouds. Early cloud atlases were an important element in the training of meteorologists and in weather forecasting, and the author of a 1923 atlas stated that "increasing use ...

'' for ''

The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 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 Tele ...

'' because he could not finish it, finding it "unreadable". The Classical theme recurred in 2007 with the publication of Mount's

best-seller A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties (novel, nonfiction book, cookb ...

, ''Amo, Amas, Amat ... and All That''. Although this book repeated his ridicule of the education system, it was his exposure of the elitist implications of the study of Latin which “caused a measure of class controversy in the U.K." "Class war with classicists" was the headline in ''Spectator Australia'' after Mount wrote a ''Telegraph'' article in 2015 saying classics exams had been dumbed down. Mount detailed the abuse he received, including: "A classics student at King’s College London called me an 'antediluvian ape'. A classics teacher at Durham Sixth Form Centre predicted my next book would be 'bowel-achingly derivative'." Mount fought back with: "The classics trolls instantly associate any dumbing down suggestions with far-right fogeyish snobbishness."

Personal life

Mount lives in

Kentish Town Kentish Town is an area of northwest London, England, in the London Borough of Camden, immediately north of Camden Town, close to Hampstead Heath. Kentish Town likely derives its name from Ken-ditch or Caen-ditch, meaning the "bed of a waterw ...

, north London.

Works

Mount is the author of several books: * ''My Brief Career'', an account of his

pupillage A pupillage, in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Kenya, Malaysia, Pakistan and Hong Kong, is the final, vocational stage of training for those wishing to become practising barristers. Pupillage is similar to an apprenticeship, during which ba ...

at a

s' chambers. * ''Amo, Amas, Amat ... and All That'', published by Hyperion in 2007, was a best-selling popular reference on the

Latin language Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

whose title harks back to Sellar and Yeatman's '' 1066 and All That''. Dedicated to his brother (William) and sister (Mary), the book introduced the basics of Latin grammar and combined his own personal memories, Latin references in popular culture, and stories about

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

. In it, he reveals his prep school nickname of "''Mons''" (''Mons, montis'' m. mountain). Published in the United States as ''Carpe Diem: Put a Little Latin in Your Life''. * ''A Lust for Window Sills'', a popular guide to British architecture. * ''How England Made the English – from Hedgerows to Heathrow'', a book about the English character and landscape. Published in May 2012 by Viking. * ''Harry's Mount's Odyssey: Ancient Greece in the Footsteps of Odysseus'

Published by Bloomsbury in 2015. * ''The King and I: How Elvis Shaped My Life'' (Kindle Single, 2017) * ''Summer Madness: How Brexit Split the Tories, Destroyed Labour and Divided the Country'' (Biteback, 2017) * ''Et Tu, Brute? The Best Latin Lines Ever'' (Bloomsbury, 2022), with John Davie * ''The Last Marchioness: A Portrait of Lindy Dufferin'' (Venn, 2023), edited and introduced by Mount. In June 2013, Bloomsbury published ''The Wit and Wisdom of

'', edited and introduced by Mount. Mount also edited a collection of

Auberon Waugh Auberon Alexander Waugh ( ; 17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was a British journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron". After a traditional classical education at Downsid ...

's journalism entitled ''Closing the Circle''.

References

External links

''Burke's Peerage & Baronetage online''

Harry Mount – The Telegraph
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mount, Harry 1971 births Living people People from Lambeth Writers from the London Borough of Lambeth Journalists from London People educated at Westminster School, London Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art British male journalists Linguistics writers 21st-century British writers Daily Mail journalists The Daily Telegraph people Harry People educated at North Bridge House School Younger sons of baronets Bullingdon Club members