British historian (1929?2018)
John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich
,
CVO
(15 September 1929 ? 1 June 2018),
[1]
known as
John Julius Norwich
, was an English
popular historian
,
[2]
travel writer, and television personality.
[3]
Biography
[
edit
]
Youth
[
edit
]
Norwich was born at the Alfred House Nursing Home on
Portland Place
in
Marylebone
, London, on 15 September 1929.
[4]
He was the son of the Conservative politician and diplomat
Duff Cooper
, later Viscount Norwich, and of
Lady Diana Manners
, a celebrated beauty and society figure.
[5]
He was given the name "Julius" in part because he was born by
caesarean section
.
[6]
Such was his mother's fame as an actress and beauty that the birth attracted a crowd outside the nursing home and hundreds of letters of congratulations.
[4]
Through his father, he was descended from King
William IV
and his mistress
Dorothea Jordan
.
[7]
He was educated at Egerton House School in
Dorset Square
, London, later becoming a boarder at the school when it was evacuated to
Northamptonshire
before the outbreak of the Second World War.
[8]
Because his father as
Minister of Information
was high on the Nazi enemies list of British politicians, Norwich's parents feared for their son's safety in the event of a German invasion of Britain. In 1940 they decided to send him away after the
US ambassador to Britain
,
Joseph P. Kennedy
, offered to bring him to the United States with other
evacuee children
on board the
SS
Washington
.
[9]
He attended
Upper Canada College
,
Toronto
, Canada, while spending his holidays with the family of
William S. Paley
on
Long Island
in New York.
[10]
In 1942 he returned to Britain,
[11]
where he attended
Eton College
. After the war, he studied at the
University of Strasbourg
while his father was ambassador to France.
[12]
He completed his
national service
in the
Royal Navy
before taking a degree in French and Russian at
New College, Oxford
.
[12]
Career
[
edit
]
Joining the
British Foreign Service
after Oxford, John Julius Cooper served in
Yugoslavia
and
Lebanon
and as a member of the British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in
Geneva
.
[13]
On his father's death in 1954, he inherited the title of
Viscount Norwich
, created for his father,
Duff Cooper
, in 1952.
[14]
This gave him a right to sit in the
House of Lords
, though he lost this right with the
House of Lords Act 1999
.
[15]
In 1964, Norwich left the diplomatic service to become a writer.
[13]
His subsequent books included histories of
Sicily under the Normans
(1967, 1970),
Venice
(1977, 1981), the
Byzantine Empire
(1988, 1992, 1995), the
Mediterranean
(2006) and the
Papacy
(2011), amongst others (see list below).
[16]
He also served as editor of series such as
Great Architecture of the World
,
The Italian World
,
The New Shell Guides to Great Britain
,
The Oxford Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Art
and the
Duff Cooper Diaries
.
[17]
Norwich worked extensively in radio and television. He was host of the
BBC
radio panel game
My Word!
for four years (1978?82) and also a regional contestant on
Round Britain Quiz
. He wrote and presented some 30 television documentaries, including
The
Fall of Constantinople
,
Napoleon's Hundred Days
,
Cortes
and
Montezuma
,
The Antiquities of
Turkey
,
The Gates of Asia
,
Maximilian of Mexico
,
Toussaint l'Ouverture
of
Haiti
,
The
Knights of Malta
,
Treasure Houses of Britain
, and
The Death of the
Prince Imperial
in the
Zulu War
.
[18]
Norwich also worked for various charitable projects. He was the chairman of the
Venice in Peril Fund
,
[19]
honorary chairman of the
World Monuments Fund
, a member of the General Committee of
Save Venice
, and a vice-president of the
National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies
.
[20]
For many years he was a member of the Executive Committee of the
National Trust
, and also served on the board of the
English National Opera
. Norwich was also a patron of SHARE Community, which provides vocational training to disabled people.
[21]
[22]
Christmas Crackers
[
edit
]
Christmas Crackers
were compiled from whatever attracted Norwich: letters and diaries and gravestones and poems, boastful
Who's Who
entries, indexes from biographies, word games such as palindromes,
holorhymes
and mnemonics, occasionally in untranslated Greek, French, Latin, German or whatever language they were sourced from, as well as such oddities as a review from the American outdoors magazine
Field and Stream
concerning the republication of
Lady Chatterley's Lover
.
[23]
[24]
His final
Christmas Cracker
was the 49th. It was put together during the early part of 2018 and he corrected the final proofs from his hospital bed before he died on 1 June 2018.
[25]
Personal life and death
[
edit
]
Norwich's first wife was Anne Frances May Clifford, daughter of the Hon. Sir
Bede Clifford
; they had one daughter, the Hon.
Artemis Cooper
, a historian, and a son, the Hon. Jason Charles Duff Bede Cooper, an architect.
[26]
After their divorce, Norwich married his second wife, the Hon. Mary (Makins) Philipps, daughter of
The 1st Baron Sherfield
.
[27]
Norwich was also the father of
Allegra Huston
, born of his affair with the American ballet dancer
Enrica Soma
while she was married to the American film director
John Huston
.
[28]
Norwich lived for much of his life in a large detached Victorian house in
Warwick Avenue
, in the heart of
Little Venice
in
Maida Vale
, London, very close to
Regent's Canal
.
[29]
He died at
King Edward VII's Hospital
in London on 1 June 2018, aged 88.
[3]
[13]
Titles, styles, honours and arms
[
edit
]
- 1929?1952: John Julius Cooper
[30]
- 1952?1954:
The Honourable
John Julius Cooper
[27]
- 1954?2018:
The Right Honourable
The Viscount Norwich
[31]
Norwich was appointed to the
Royal Victorian Order
as a Commander in 1992 by
Elizabeth II
, as part of the celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of her accession.
[32]
Coat of arms of John Julius Norwich
|
- Crest
- On the Battlements of a Tower Argent a Bull passant Sable armed and unguled Or
- Escutcheon
- Or three Lions rampant Gules on a Chief Azure a Portcullis chained between two Fleurs-de-lis of the first
- Supporters
- On either side a Unicorn Argent gorged with a Collar with Chain reflexed over the back Or pendent from the collar of the dexter a Portcullis chained and from that of the sinister a Fleur-de-lys both Gold
- Motto
- Odi Et Amo (I hate and I love)
[33]
- Orders
- Royal Victorian Order (not pictured)
|
Ancestry
[
edit
]
Ancestors of John Julius Norwich
|
---|
|
Works
[
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]
- Mount Athos
(jointly with
Reresby Sitwell
), Hutchinson, 1966
- The Normans in the South, 1016?1130
, Longman, 1967. Also published by Harper & Row with the title
The Other Conquest
- Sahara
, Longman, 1968
- The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130?1194
, Longman, 1970.
- Great Architecture of the World
, Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, 1975
ISBN
978-0-85533-067-5
- Venice: The Rise to Empire
, Allen Lane, 1977
ISBN
978-0-7139-0742-1
- Venice: The Greatness and Fall
, Allen Lane, 1981
ISBN
978-0-7139-1409-2
- A History of Venice
, Knopf, 1982 / Penguin, 1983
ISBN
978-0-679-72197-0
, single-volume combined edition
- Britain's Heritage
(editor), HarperCollins, 1983
ISBN
978-0-246-11840-0
- The Italian World: History, Art and the Genius of a People
(editor), Thames & Hudson, 1983,
ISBN
978-0-500-25088-4
- Hashish
(photographs by Suomi La Valle, historical profile by John Julius Norwich), Quartet Books, 1984,
ISBN
978-0-7043-2450-3
- The Architecture of Southern England
, Macmillan, 1985,
ISBN
978-0-333-22037-5
- Fifty Years of
Glyndebourne
, Cape, 1985,
ISBN
978-0-224-02310-8
- A Taste for Travel
, Macmillan, 1985,
ISBN
978-0-333-38434-3
- Byzantium: The Early Centuries
, Viking, 1988,
ISBN
978-0-670-80251-7
- Venice: a Traveller's Companion
(an anthology compiled by Lord Norwich), Constable, 1990,
ISBN
978-0-09-467550-6
- Oxford Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Art
(editor) Oxford, 1990
- The Normans in the South
and
The Kingdom in the Sun
, on
Norman Sicily
, later republished as
The Normans in Sicily
, Penguin, 1992 (The Normans in the South, 1016?1130; originally published:- Harlow:Longman,1967?The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130?1194; originally published:- Harlow:Longman, 1970)
ISBN
978-0-14-015212-8
- Byzantium; v. 2: The Apogee
, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992,
ISBN
978-0-394-53779-5
- Byzantium; v. 3: The Decline and Fall
, Viking, 1995,
ISBN
978-0-670-82377-2
- A Short History of Byzantium
, Alfred A. Knopf, 1997,
ISBN
978-0-679-45088-7
- The Twelve Days of Christmas (Correspondence)
(illustrated by
Quentin Blake
), Doubleday, 1998 (spoof of the old favourite carol,
"The Twelve Days of Christmas"
),
ISBN
978-0-385-41028-1
- Shakespeare's Kings: the Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337?1485
, New York: Scribner, 2000,
ISBN
978-0-684-81434-6
- Treasures of Britain
(editor), Everyman Publishers, 2002,
ISBN
978-0-7495-3256-7
- Paradise of Cities, Venice and its Nineteenth-century Visitors
, Viking/Penguin, 2003,
ISBN
978-0-670-89401-7
- The Duff Cooper Diaries
(editor), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006,
ISBN
978-0-7538-2105-3
- The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean
, Doubleday, 2006,
ISBN
978-0-385-51023-3
- Trying to Please
(autobiography), Wimborne Minster, Dovecote Press, 2008,
ISBN
978-1-904349-58-7
- Christmas Crackers
(anecdotes, trivia and witticisms collected from history and literature)
- More Christmas Crackers
- The Big Bang: Christmas Crackers, 2000?2009
, Dovecote Press, 2010,
ISBN
978-1-904349-84-6
- The Great Cities in History
(editor), Thames and Hudson, 2009,
ISBN
978-0-500-25154-6
- Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy
, Random House, 2011,
ISBN
978-0-7011-8290-8
(US title for
The Popes: A History
)
- The Popes: A History
, Chatto & Windus, 2011,
ISBN
978-0-09-956587-1
(UK title for
Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy
)
- A History of England in 100 Places: From Stonehenge to the Gherkin
, John Murray, 2012,
ISBN
978-1-84854-609-7
- Darling Monster: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to Her Son John Julius Norwich
(editor), Chatto & Windus, 2013,
ISBN
978-0-7011-8779-8
- Cities That Shaped the Ancient World
(editor), Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2014,
ISBN
978-0-500-25204-8
- Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History
, Random House, 2015,
ISBN
978-0-8129-9517-6
- Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe
, John Murray, 2016,
ISBN
978-1-47363-295-0
- France: A History: from Gaul to de Gaulle
, John Murray, 2018,
ISBN
978-1-4736-6383-1
- A History of France
, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2018,
ISBN
978-0-8021-2890-4
- A Christmas Cracker being a commonplace selection
, 2018,
ISBN
978-0-9932126-2-8
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Telegraph Obituaries (1 June 2018).
"John Julius Norwich, writer and television personality ? obituary"
. Telegraph.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 March
2020
.
- ^
4 June 2008 (4 June 2008).
"
"John Julius Norwich:'Deep down, I'm shallow. I really am'",
The Telegraph
, 04 Jun 2008"
. Telegraph.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 March
2020
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
a
b
"John Julius Norwich obituary: writer and broadcaster keen to share his many passions"
.
The Guardian
. 1 June 2018
. Retrieved
19 June
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Diana Cooper (1959).
The Light of Common Day
. Houghton Mifflin. p. 89=90.
- ^
"Yardley, Jonathan. "John Julius Norwich's memoir, 'Trying to Please', reviewed by Jonathan Yardley",
The Washington Post
, 5 September 2010"
.
Washingtonpost.com
. 5 September 2010
. Retrieved
13 March
2020
.
- ^
- ^
John Julius Norwich, ed. (2006).
The Duff Cooper Diaries
. Orion Books Ltd. p. x.
- ^
- ^
Diana Cooper (1960).
Trumpets from the Steep
. Vintage Books. p. 40.
- ^
- ^
- ^
a
b
"John Julius Norwich :: Introduction"
.
www.johnjuliusnorwich.com
. Archived from
the original
on 1 March 2016
. Retrieved
10 March
2018
.
- ^
a
b
c
Whyte, William (2022). "Cooper, John Julius, second Viscount Norwich (1929?2018), writer and broadcaster".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000380455
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
"Whitehall, July 8, 1952".
London Gazette
. London. 8 July 1952. p. 3699.
- ^
"Lords reform"
.
The Guardian
. 20 January 2000
. Retrieved
10 March
2018
.
- ^
"John Julius Norwich :: Books Written"
.
www.johnjuliusnorwich.com
. Retrieved
10 March
2018
.
- ^
"John Julius Norwich :: Books Edited"
.
www.johnjuliusnorwich.com
. Retrieved
10 March
2018
.
- ^
"John Julius Norwich :: Television"
.
John Julius Norwich
. 2013. Archived from
the original
on 3 November 2018
. Retrieved
9 August
2020
.
- ^
"Venice in Peril ? Trustees"
. Archived from
the original
on 25 February 2020
. Retrieved
20 December
2015
.
- ^
"Welcome to NADFAS"
. Archived from
the original
on 22 December 2015
. Retrieved
20 December
2015
.
- ^
"Board of Trustees, Vice Presidents and Patrons | Share Community"
.
www.sharecommunity.org.uk
. 20 March 2014
. Retrieved
10 March
2018
.
- ^
"Mission, vision, and values | Share Community"
.
www.sharecommunity.org.uk
. 20 March 2014
. Retrieved
10 March
2018
.
- ^
"Another cracker from John Julius Norwich"
. 28 November 2013.
- ^
Blume, Mary (3 December 1986).
"Some Literary Feats for Your Yule Stockings"
– via Los Angeles Times.
- ^
Introduction to Christmas Cracker 2018
- ^
"Jason Charles Duff Bede Cooper"
.
Architects Registration Board
. 2010
. Retrieved
2 February
2020
.
- ^
a
b
"John Julius Norwich: Aristocrat historian and broadcaster whose passions were inspired by remarkable parents"
.
The Independent
. 2 June 2018.
Archived
from the original on 13 June 2022
. Retrieved
9 August
2018
.
- ^
"A Daughter's Life with Daddy Issues"
.
The New York Times
. 2 April 2009
. Retrieved
20 December
2015
.
- ^
Parker, Olivia (25 March 2014).
"My perfect weekend: John Julius Norwich, historian and writer"
.
Daily Telegraph
.
ISSN
0307-1235
. Retrieved
13 June
2018
.
- ^
"John Julius Norwich"
.
The Times
. 1 June 2018
. Retrieved
9 August
2018
.
- ^
"John Julius Norwich obituary"
.
The Guardian
. 1 June 2018
. Retrieved
9 August
2018
.
- ^
"Supplement to the London Gazette, 31st December 1992"
(PDF)
.
The London Gazette
. p. 4
. Retrieved
2 March
2022
.
- ^
This is a quotation from the Roman poet
Catullus
:
Hamacher, Werner
(2020).
On the brink : language, time, history, and politics
. London: Bowman and Littlefield. pp. 79?80.
ISBN
9781786603913
.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Leaders & Legends: John Julius Norwich (In:
Old Times
; Winter/Spring, 2008)
External links
[
edit
]
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