Arthur Bryant British historian and columnist for the Illustrated London News Date of Birth: 18.02.1899 Country: Great Britain

Biography of Arthur Bryant

Sir Arthur Wynne Morgan Bryant was born on February 18, 1899. He was the son of Sir Francis Morgan Bryant, the chief clerk to the Prince of Wales, and his wife May. His father later became a registrar of the Royal Victorian Order. Arthur grew up in a house on the edge of the Buckingham Palace gardens, near the royal stables. It was here that he developed a strong attachment to English history and learned about the traditions of British diplomatic etiquette. After receiving his education, which included attending the independent Harrow School for boys, Bryant planned to join the ranks of the British army. However, in 1916, he won a scholarship to study at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Despite this, Arthur started from the lowest rank in the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and served in the first squadron bombing the Rhine region in World War I.

He studied modern history from 1919 at Queen's College, Oxford. While working at a school, Bryant developed a strong sense of social justice and believed that education was an effective means of bringing people together. These beliefs led him to become a historian. In 1923, he tried his hand at the position of lawyer in the Inner Temple association but left it in the same year to serve as the director of the Cambridge School of Arts, Crafts, and Technology. Thus, Arthur became the youngest director in England. Within three years, the number of students at his school increased from 300 to 2000. Bryant married Sylvia Mary Shakerley, the daughter of Sir Walter Geoffrey Shakerley, the third baronet Shakerley, and a year later began teaching history at the University of Oxford. In 1930, Sylvia and Arthur divorced, and a year before that, Bryant published his first book, "The Spirit of Conservatism."

In October 1931, his future bestseller, "The Book Society," was born, and his three-volume biography of Samuel Pepys, completed in 1938, was considered "one of the great historical biographies." Bryant often published in London newspapers and magazines; he included a whole collection of historical scripts in his book "The National Character." In January 1940, Arthur presented the book "Unfinished Victory," which examined the recent events in German history. He sympathetically described how Germany recovered after World War I and stated that German Jews benefited from the economic crisis and controlled the national wealth. Bryant criticized the destruction of Jewish shops and synagogues and made the careless statement that the Third Reich was capable of building a "new and happier Germany in the future." Initially, most reviewers spoke positively about the book, but when the "phoney war" came to an end, Arthur realized his mistake and tried to buy up all the unsold copies of the book.

In 1941, he married Anne Elaine Brooke; the marriage ended in 1976. In the last years of his life, the historian wrote books such as "Set in a Silver Sea" and "Freedom's Own Island." He died on January 22, 1985, and his funeral took place at Salisbury Cathedral. Arthur Bryant became the author of over 40 books, the majority of which were published and sold with a total circulation of over 2 million copies.