Peter John Hennessy, Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield, FBA (born 28 March 1947) is an English historian and academic specialising in the history of government. Since 1992, he has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary University of London.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Career
  • 2.1 Journalism
  • 2.2 Academic career
• 3 Elevation to the peerage
• 4 Bibliography
• 5 See also
• 6 References
• 7 Sources
• 8 External links

Early life

Hennessy was born in Edmonton, north London, the youngest child of William G. Hennessy by his marriage to Edith (Wood-Johnson) Hennessy. He comes from a large Catholic family of Irish provenance. He was brought up in large houses, requisitioned by the council, first in Allandale Avenue and then in Lyndhurst Gardens, Finchley, north London.

He attended the nearby Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School, and on Sundays he went to St Mary Magdalene Church, where he was an altar boy. He was a subject of the first episode of the BBC Radio 4 series The House I Grew Up In, first broadcast on 6 August 2007, in which he talked about his childhood.

Hennessy was educated at St Benedict's School, an independent school in Ealing, West London. When his father's job led the family to move to the Cotswolds, he attended Marling School, a grammar school in Stroud, Gloucestershire. He went on to study at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a BA in 1969 and a PhD in 1990. Hennessy was a Kennedy Memorial Scholar at Harvard University from 1971 to 1972.

Career

Journalism

Hennessy was a journalist for the Times Higher Education Supplement from 1972 to 1974. From 1974 to 1982, he wrote leaders for The Times, for which he was also the Whitehall correspondent. He was The Financial Times' lobby correspondent at Westminster in 1976. In June 1977, Hennessy accused Donald Beves of being the "fourth man" in the Cambridge Spy Ring (then-known participants were Philby, Burgess, and Maclean), but Geoffrey Grigson and others quickly leapt to the defense of Beves, considering him uninterested in politics.

Hennessy wrote for The Economist in 1982. He was a regular presenter of *ysis on BBC Radio 4 from 1987 to 1992. On 17 November 2005, he made a trenchant appearance alongside Lord Wilson of Dinton before the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee on the publication of political memoirs.

In July and August 2013 he was the interviewer for BBC Radio 4's Reflections, a series of four biographical interview programmes featuring Shirley Williams, Jack Straw, Norman Tebbit and Neil Kinnock. Hennessy continues to present the programme.

On 17 April 2022, he was interviewed by BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House. On the subject of the Metropolitan Police fines issued to Boris Johnson for lockdown breaches during the Partygate scandal, he said "I think we're in the most severe cons*utional crisis involving a prime minister that I can remember".

Academic career

Professor Hennessy giving a public lecture at LSE in 1989

Hennessy co-founded the Ins*ute of Contemporary British History in 1986. From 1992 to 2000, he was professor of contemporary history at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. From 1994 to 1997, he gave public lectures as Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College, London. From 2001, he has been Attlee professor of contemporary British history at Queen Mary, University of London.

His *ysis of post-war Britain, Never Again: Britain 1945–1951, won the Duff Cooper Prize in 1992 and the NCR Book Award in 1993.

His study of Britain in the 1950s and the rise of Harold Macmillan, Having It So Good: Britain in the 1950s, won the 2007 Orwell Prize for political writing.

Elevation to the peerage

Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield in 2018

On 5 October 2010 the House of Lords Appointments Commission said Hennessy was to be a non-political crossbench peer. He was created a life peer on 8 November 2010, taking the *le Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield, of Nympsfield in the County of Gloucestershire. He was introduced to the House of Lords on 25 November.

"I'm terribly pleased and honoured," Hennessy said at hearing the news. "I hope I can help the House of Lords a bit on cons*utional matters. I'll certainly give it my best shot." In August 2014, Lord Hennessy was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum.

Hennessy is married with two daughters.

Bibliography

Hennessy is the author of the following:

• Cabinet (1986) ISBN:0-631-14968-6
• Whitehall (1989) ISBN:0-02-914441-8
• Never Again: Britain 1945–51 (1992) ISBN:0-679-43363-5
• The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Cons*ution (1995) ISBN:0-575-06176-6
• The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945 (2000) ISBN:0-312-29313-5
• The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (2002) ISBN:0-7139-9626-9Republished and extended as The Secret State: Preparing For The Worst 1945–2010 (2010) ISBN:978-0-14-104469-9 Penguin
• Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties (2006) ISBN:978-0-7139-9571-8
• Cabinets and the Bomb (2007) ISBN:978-0-19-726422-5 Oxford University Press
• The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst 1945–2010 (2010) ISBN:978-0-1410-4469-9 Penguin
• Distilling the Frenzy: Writing the History of One's Own Times (2012) ISBN:9781849542159
• Establishment and Meritocracy (2014) ISBN:9781908323774 Haus Publishing
• Kingdom to Come: Thoughts on the Union Before and After the Scottish Referendum (2015) ISBN:9781910376065 Haus Publishing
• Reflections: Conversations with Politicians (2016) ISBN:9781910376485 Haus Publishing
• The Silent Deep: The Royal Navy Submarine Service Since 1945 (2015) with James Jinks ISBN:9780241959480 Penguin
• Winds of Change: Britain in the Sixties (2019) ISBN:978-1846141102 Allen Lane

See also

• Gresham Professor of Rhetoric

References

Sources

• 'Corrected Oral Transcript of Oral Evidence presented to the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee on the publication of political memoirs on 17 November 2005 by Lord Wilson of Dinton and Professor Peter Hennessy', 7 December 2005. Retrieved 31 December 2005

External links

• Staff of QMUL Department of History website
• Archives of Peter Hennessy held by Queen Mary, University of London Archives
• House of Lords official page
• Guardian March 2004
• Appearances on C-SPAN