erek Winterbottom read History at Brasenose College, Oxford (M.A.), took his Diploma in Education at Oxford and taught at St Paul's School and Westminster School, London, and Clifton College, Bristol, before taking his B.Phil. in Medieval Studies at the University of York. He then became Head of History at Berkhamsted School, Herts, and was a Schoolmaster Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. After that he was for many years (until 1994) Head of History, Archivist and official historian of Clifton College and he also served as President of the Bristol Historical Association, 1985-87. In 1994/5 he was resident biographer of the University of Nottingham’s first vice-chancellor and from 1996 to 1998 he was a researcher for Liverpool University’s Centre for Manx Studies in Douglas. Now domiciled in the Isle of Man, he is a writer, occasional lecturer and broadcaster, and he was a governor and official historian of Rossall School from 2004-2014. Having rowed for Brasenose, he became a qualified rowing coach and was in charge of two school Boat Clubs for over twenty years. He is the author of about thirty books and booklets in the fields of history, biography, local history and education. About a third of them are concerned with education and the English Public Schools, another third with the history and culture of the Isle of Man, and the remainder with more general historical subjects.
Just a few of Derek's publications.
His numerous books on education (mostly in Victorian times) include Doctor Fry, a biography of the Headmaster of Oundle and Berkhamsted and Dean of Lincoln (1972); Henry Newbolt and the Spirit of Clifton, the first published biography of poet and historian (1986); John Percival, the Great Educator, founder of Clifton in 1862, later Bishop of Hereford and a great Victorian educationalist (1993), and Clifton After Percival, the official history of the school (1990); Brasenose College, A Short History (2021); and Thomas Hughes, Thomas Arnold, Tom Brown and the English Public Schools (2022).
Derek has also written many books on the history of the Isle of Man, notably one on T.E. Brown, His Life and Legacy, a biography of the Victorian schoolmaster who was also hailed as the Manx National Poet (1997), and another on the Victorian businessman and philanthropist, Henry Bloom Noble, who did so much for the island (2005). Derek's books on a variety of other subjects range in time and scope from The American Revolution (1972), to The Grand Old Duke of York (2016), and Coombe Abbey, A History (2018).
Special mention should be made of his Short History of England and the British Isles (2011), still available as a Kindle edition. One reviewer found it "captivating," not a remark often made about history books!
Created 5 October 2023