Norman Gash

He was professor of modern history at the University of St Andrews from 1955 to 1980 and specialised in the 19th century.

He then attended St John's College, Oxford as a scholar, where he took a First in History in 1933.

thesis on "The rural unrest in England in 1830 with special reference to Berkshire".

The second volume Sir Robert Peel (1972) covered his opposition to the Great Reform Act and his tenures as Prime Minister from 1834 to 1835 and 1841 to 1846.

Gash argued that Peel's reforms were paramount in ending the "hungry forties" and bringing about Victorian prosperity.