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Obituary of Russell Chamberlin

This obituary of Russell Chamberlin appeared in The Times on Friday, 26 January, 2007.

RUSSELL CHAMBERLIN

Self-taught author who left his job as a leather dresser in Norwich and went on to write more than 40 books.

The author of more than 40 books and articles in magazines (The Spectator, History Today) and newspapers (including The Times), Russell Chamberlin was, in spite of his professorial air, almost completely self-taught. He left school at 14 to become an apprentice leather dresser in Norwich, a job he hated. He then worked in a shop. The Second World War saved him from that. He volunteered immediately for the Royal Navy, serving as a telegraphist in corvettes.

There was a maritime element in his background - a possible explanation for this interest in Nelson. His father was a harbourmaster working in Jamaica where Chamberlin was born in 1926. In the 1930s worldwide depression was felt in Jamaica and his father returned to his native Norfolk.

After the war Chamberlin worked first at Norwich Public Library before moving to London and working for Holborn Public Library. These libraries were in effect his university, where he read extensively in European and British history. He then transferred to the books-publishing side of Readers' Digest and had his first book, The Count of Virtue, on Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, published in 1966.

Thereafter his output was prodigious. Most of his books were historical. The Bad Popes (1969) has been translated frequently and republished. Among other titles were The Fall of the House of Borgia and The Sack of Rome.

Articles poured from him as well. He often visited Sicily, where he saw the estate on the slopes of Mt Etna that was awarded to Nelson when he was made Duke of Bronte by a grateful Kingdom of Naples. When it was sold to the local municipality in 1981, Chamberlin encouraged its development as a Nelson monument.

Through his efforts a portrait of Nelson was acquired for it in 2004 - an Edward Bell mezzotint version of that which Chamberlin knew, by Sir William Beechey, hung in the Guildhall at Norwich. A full account of the development of the Nelson estate as a tourist shrine, which included the portrait's presentation to the Mayor of Bronte at a lunch in the House of Lords, appeared in an article by Chamberlin in The Times Register on April 14, 2004.

In Guildford, too, where he had settled in the 1960s, Chamberlin was active in historical preservation. Apart from writing books on the city he threw himself into the preservation of the Guildford Institute. Founded as a mechanics instituted in 1834, it was in danger of disappearing in development. Chamberlin lobbied and in 1982 saved it (a Grade II-listed building). As a result it was re-endowed with energy and purpose in partnership with the University of Surrey. For this the university granted him an honorary degree in1986.

He is survived by his wife, Linda, and by a son and daughter.

Russell Chamberlin, author, was born on May 25, 1926. He died on December 8, 2006, aged 80.