John Julius Norwich

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Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich, Template:Post-nominals (15 September 1929 – 1 June 2018),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> also known as John Julius Norwich, was an English popular historian,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> writer of widely read travel books, and television personality.<ref name=Guardian> Template:Cite news</ref>

Cooper was born in London in 1929, the son of a Conservative politician and diplomat, Duff Cooper, and the actress, Diana Manners. Cooper joined the British Foreign Service in 1952, serving in Yugoslavia and Lebanon and as a member of the British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva.<ref name="ODNB2">Template:Cite ODNB</ref> On his father's death in 1954, he became the second Viscount Norwich. In 1964, Cooper left the diplomatic service to become a writer.

His 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). He also served as an 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Norwich also worked extensively in radio and television. He was the 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, Cortés 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Biography

Youth

Norwich was born at the Alfred House Nursing Home on Portland Place in Marylebone, London, on 15 September 1929.<ref name="Cooper">Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name=Yardley>Template:Cite web</ref> He was given the name "Julius" in part because he was born by caesarean section.<ref>Template:Cite videoTemplate:Cbignore</ref> 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.<ref name="Cooper"/> Through his father, he was descended from King William IV and his mistress Dorothea Jordan.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Cbignore</ref> 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 take him to the United States with other evacuee children on board the Template:SS.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He attended Upper Canada College, Toronto, Canada, and spent his holidays with the family of William S. Paley on Long Island in New York.<ref>Template:Cite videoTemplate:Cbignore</ref> In 1942 he returned to Britain,<ref>Template:Cite videoTemplate:Cbignore</ref> where he attended Eton College. After the war, he studied at the University of Strasbourg while his father was ambassador to France.<ref name=":0" /> He completed his national service in the Royal Navy before taking a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

Joining the British Foreign Service after Oxford, Cooper served in Yugoslavia and Lebanon and as a member of the British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva.<ref name = ODNB>Template:Cite ODNB</ref> On his father's death in 1954, he inherited the title of Viscount Norwich, created for his father, Duff Cooper, in 1952.<ref>"Whitehall, July 8, 1952". London Gazette. London. 8 July 1952. p. 3699.</ref> This gave him a right to sit in the House of Lords, though he lost this right with the House of Lords Act 1999.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1964, Norwich left the diplomatic service to become a writer.<ref name = ODNB/> 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).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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, Cortés 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Norwich also worked for various charitable projects. He was the chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Christmas Crackers

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref>Introduction to Christmas Cracker 2018</ref>

Personal life

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After their divorce, Norwich married his second wife, the Hon. Mary (Makins) Philipps, daughter of The 1st Baron Sherfield.<ref name=":1"/>

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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He latterly downsized to a flat in nearby Bayswater.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

He died at King Edward VII's Hospital in London on 1 June 2018, aged 88.<ref name="Guardian" /><ref name="ODNB" /> He was cremated, and his ashes remain with his family, awaiting an appropriate occasion to be scattered in the Venetian Lagoon.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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Works

References

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Sources

  • Leaders & Legends: John Julius Norwich (In: Old Times; Winter/Spring, 2008)

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