Philip Ziegler | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | Philip Sandeman Ziegler 24 December 1929 Ringwood, Hampshire, England |
| Died | 22 December 2023(2023-12-22) (aged 93) |
Philip Sandeman Ziegler (24 December 1929 – 22 February 2023) was a British biographer and historian.
Ziegler was born inRingwood, Hampshire on 24 December 1929, the son of Louis Ziegler, an Army officer, and Dora Barnwell, a homemaker.[1] He was educated atSt Cyprian's School,Eastbourne, and went with the school when it merged withSummer Fields School,Oxford.[citation needed] He attendedEton College andNew College, Oxford, graduating in 1951 with a first class degree inJurisprudence from Oxford before joining theBritish Foreign Service.[1][2] In the Foreign Service, he served inVientiane where he worked with the US ambassador to LaosCharles W. Yost,Pretoria, andBogotá, as well as with the Delegation toNATO in Paris.[3][2]
In 1967, he resigned from the Foreign Service and joined the publishersCollins, which was, at the time, run by his father-in-law.[2] Originally intending to be a novelist, he began a career as biographer with his life ofTalleyrand's lover, theDuchess of Dino. He was editor in chief at Collins from 1979 to 1980.[2] He was chosen as official biographer ofEdward VIII, for which he was later appointedCVO. Ziegler wrote for various journals and newspapers, includingThe Spectator,The Listener,The Times,The Daily Telegraph andHistory Today.[3]
In 1967, gunmen broke into Ziegler's family home inBogotá and shot dead his wife, Sarah Collins. Ziegler was wounded in the attack.[2] He then married social worker Mary Clare Charrington in 1971; she died in 2017.[2]
Ziegler died from cancer on 22 February 2023, at the age of 93.[4]
