Vic Gatrell

Born to working-class immigrant Londoners in South Africa, Gatrell went to state schools in Pietermaritzburg and Port Elizabeth and then to Rhodes University, where he graduated with first-class Honours and won an Elsie Ballot scholarship to Cambridge.

He became Professor of British History at the University of Essex 2003–2009, but returned to Cambridge in 2009 as a professorial Life Fellow of Caius: he and his wife have lived there since 1970.

His autobiography explains that in Cambridge his lectures and writing 'bypassed the kings, aristocrats, bishop and captains of industry and empire that fascinated most of my Faculty colleagues'.

[6] Gatrell's Conspiracy on Cato Street: Liberty and Revolution in Regency London was published by Cambridge University Press in April 2022 and was anticipated in his 2020 lecture on the Cato Street Conspiracy for Gresham College.

[8] His Farewell the Jacarandas: Growing up in Apartheid South Africa: A Cambridge Historian's Memoir was self-published on Amazon in 2024.