Background
Robert Vidal Rhodes James was born on April 10, 1933, in Murree, India. He was the son of William Rhodes and Violet (Swinhoe) James.
1 Walton St, Oxford OX1 2HB, United Kingdom
James attended Worcester College, in Oxford.
James attended Sedbergh School.
Robert Vidal Rhodes James was born on April 10, 1933, in Murree, India. He was the son of William Rhodes and Violet (Swinhoe) James.
James began his education in private schools in India, then he returned to England where he attended Sedbergh School and then he studied at Worcester College at Oxford University.
Rhodes wrote his first book, a much-acclaimed biography of Lord Randolph Churchill, in 1959 whilst working as a Clerk of the House of Commons, the equivalent of parliament's own internal civil service. He was a Clerk between 1955 and 1964, being promoted to Senior Clerk in 1961. His following two books, a biography of Rosebery, and a reappraisal of the Gallipoli campaign resulted in his being made a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where he engaged in full-time research on the papers of J.C.C. Davidson between 1965 and 1968.
He then became Director of the Institute for the Study of International Organisation at the University of Sussex from 1968 to 1973, before working as Principal Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim. In 1970, he wrote a particularly influential revisionist biography of Winston Churchill for the years 1900-1939, arguing that there were substantial reasons why Churchill's judgment was questioned by his contemporaries. He also edited the definitive edition of Churchill's speeches, in eight volumes.
He was elected to the House of Commons at a by-election in 1976 for the marginal seat of Cambridge, and held that seat until his retirement at the 1992 general election, despite a strong Social Democratic Party challenge in the seat in the 1983 and 1987 general elections. The seat was finally lost to Labour when he stood down. A self-described moderate, 'One Nation' Tory, his views found little favor with Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher, and he came to resent his lack of promotion in parliament, never progressing beyond being PPS at the Foreign Office, and dubbing his own political career "A study in failure", borrowing the subtitle of his Churchill biography.
During his time in parliament, he wrote two further highly-praised biographies, both of them 'official' works with exclusive access to private papers - a sympathetic biography of Prime Minister Anthony Eden, and an account of the life of the maverick backbencher Robert Boothby. He was knighted in 1991 and after he stood down from parliament the following year, he lobbied unsuccessfully for a peerage and held several visiting professorships at American universities.
In 1976, Rhodes James became a Conservative Member of Parliament.
James was an accomplished contemporary historian and biographer who wanted to vindicate an older method of interpreting and analyzing politics, in which literary style and human and political insight are at least as important as the priestly laying-on of slide-rules.
James was the fellow of Wolfson College, in Cambridge, the fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Royal History Society. Also, he was a member of the Travellers and Carlton Clubs.
On August 18, 1956, James married Angela Margaret Robertson. They had four daughters - Lucy Victoria Margaret, Emma Jennifee, Charlotte Elizabeth, Katherine Alexandra Stirling.