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John Charmley
John Denis Charmley FRHistS (9 November 1955 – 12 May 2025) was a British academic and diplomatic historian. From 1979 he held various posts at the University of East Anglia: initially as Head of the School of History, then as the Head of the School of Music and most recently as the Head of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Humanities. From 2016 until his retirement in 2021 he was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic strategy, then Provost, at St Mary's University, Twickenham. In this role he was responsible for initiating the University's Foundation Year Programme, reflecting Professor Charmley's commitment to widening educational access.
Charmley was born on 9 November 1955 to Jack, a docker, and Doris, a barmaid. Later in life he reflected that he grew up in a household "without books". He was educated at Rock Ferry High School and won a scholarship to study at Pembroke College, Oxford (BA, 1977; DPhil, 1982). His doctoral thesis focused on wartime dealings between the British government and Charles de Gaulle. In 1979, three years before completing his doctorate, he was appointed to a lectureship at the University of East Anglia, where he would remain for the majority of his career.
Charmley was a man of "profound but eclectic faith", moving "from Methodism (Sunday school), Evangelism (verging on the Unitarian), high church Anglicanism, via English Coptic Orthodoxy, to deliverance as the very keenest of Catholic converts".
In 1977 Charmley married Ann Dorothea Bartlett, with whom he had three sons (two of them twins). Their marriage was dissolved in 1992. His second wife was Lorraine Fegan, and their marriage was dissolved in 2003. In 2004 he married Rachel Heap, acquiring two stepdaughters.
Charmley died in Harleston, Norfolk on 12 May 2025, at the age of 69.
Charmley sums up his verdict on the career of Winston Churchill in Churchill: The End of Glory:
He also tried to rehabilitate Neville Chamberlain. F. M. Leventhal, in a review of Chamberlain and the Lost Peace, suggested that while Charmley's work portrayed a courageous leader with "a deep and humane desire to leave no stone unturned to avoid war," Chamberlain's inability to recognise Hitler's ambition meant that "perhaps that is why Winston Churchill's reputation remains largely untarnished, while Chamberlain's, Charmley's initiative notwithstanding, cannot be resuscitated".
Charmley admitted that his books on Chamberlain and Churchill drew heavily from the work of Maurice Cowling, on occasion claiming to only have produced an "English translation" of Cowling's "syntactically impenetrable prose". He followed Cowling in arguing that appeasement was "the only sensible means of dealing with the European crisis" when the British military were underprepared for war and the British public were resistant to it.
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John Charmley
John Denis Charmley FRHistS (9 November 1955 – 12 May 2025) was a British academic and diplomatic historian. From 1979 he held various posts at the University of East Anglia: initially as Head of the School of History, then as the Head of the School of Music and most recently as the Head of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Humanities. From 2016 until his retirement in 2021 he was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic strategy, then Provost, at St Mary's University, Twickenham. In this role he was responsible for initiating the University's Foundation Year Programme, reflecting Professor Charmley's commitment to widening educational access.
Charmley was born on 9 November 1955 to Jack, a docker, and Doris, a barmaid. Later in life he reflected that he grew up in a household "without books". He was educated at Rock Ferry High School and won a scholarship to study at Pembroke College, Oxford (BA, 1977; DPhil, 1982). His doctoral thesis focused on wartime dealings between the British government and Charles de Gaulle. In 1979, three years before completing his doctorate, he was appointed to a lectureship at the University of East Anglia, where he would remain for the majority of his career.
Charmley was a man of "profound but eclectic faith", moving "from Methodism (Sunday school), Evangelism (verging on the Unitarian), high church Anglicanism, via English Coptic Orthodoxy, to deliverance as the very keenest of Catholic converts".
In 1977 Charmley married Ann Dorothea Bartlett, with whom he had three sons (two of them twins). Their marriage was dissolved in 1992. His second wife was Lorraine Fegan, and their marriage was dissolved in 2003. In 2004 he married Rachel Heap, acquiring two stepdaughters.
Charmley died in Harleston, Norfolk on 12 May 2025, at the age of 69.
Charmley sums up his verdict on the career of Winston Churchill in Churchill: The End of Glory:
He also tried to rehabilitate Neville Chamberlain. F. M. Leventhal, in a review of Chamberlain and the Lost Peace, suggested that while Charmley's work portrayed a courageous leader with "a deep and humane desire to leave no stone unturned to avoid war," Chamberlain's inability to recognise Hitler's ambition meant that "perhaps that is why Winston Churchill's reputation remains largely untarnished, while Chamberlain's, Charmley's initiative notwithstanding, cannot be resuscitated".
Charmley admitted that his books on Chamberlain and Churchill drew heavily from the work of Maurice Cowling, on occasion claiming to only have produced an "English translation" of Cowling's "syntactically impenetrable prose". He followed Cowling in arguing that appeasement was "the only sensible means of dealing with the European crisis" when the British military were underprepared for war and the British public were resistant to it.