Matthew d'Ancona

Matthew d'Ancona

Matthew d'Ancona (born 27 January 1968)^[1] is a British journalist. A former deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph, he was appointed editor of The Spectator in February 2006, a post he retained until August 2009.

Early life

D'Ancona's father came from Malta to Britain to study and ended up playing professional football for Newcastle before becoming a civil servant. According to d'Ancona, his father was also many times Maltese tennis champion. His mother was an English teacher.

Education

D'Ancona was educated at St Dunstan's College, an independent school for boys (now co-educational) in Catford in south London, where he was head boy and captain of judo. He also showed an early aptitude for journalism by winning an essay writing competition on the subject of the future of British industry run by the Observer. He went up to Magdalen College at the University of Oxford, where he took the top First in Modern History for his year in 1989. The same year, he was elected a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Life and career

After a year studying medieval confession, he joined the magazine Index on Censorship, before proceeding to The Times as a trainee. There he rose swiftly to become Education Correspondent and then Assistant Editor at the age of 26.

He joined The Sunday Telegraph in 1996 as deputy comment editor and columnist, before becoming Deputy Editor. He has written a weekly political column in The Sunday Telegraph for a decade. He succeeded Boris Johnson as editor of The Spectator, and made some major structural changes to the magazine, not all of which were universally popular with readers. On August 28, 2009, it was announced that d'Ancona would be stepping down as editor to be replaced by Fraser Nelson. It was immediately unclear what his future plans would be. Private Eye reported in its issue of September 15 that D'Ancona had been sacked as editor although it did not elaborate in the reasons. Shortly afterwards, he was snapped up by the Evening Standard as a weekly columnist, so far appearing on a Monday. The same newspaper reported in late October 2009 that d'Ancona was set to become a Hollywood scriptwriter for a film about the art historian Bernard Berenson. He is also reportedly writing a History of England with John Cleese.

While not himself a believer,^[2] d'Ancona is also the author of two books on early Christian theology, The Jesus Papyrus and The Quest for the True Cross. He has written three novels, Going East, Tabatha's Code and Nothing to Fear.

D'Ancona has also written several articles for the British political magazine Prospect.

References

1. ^ "He is wise not scatty, a thoughtful intelligent man" The Guardian (17 February 2006). Retrieved 21 June 2010.
2. ^ Discussed briefly on BBC Radio 3's Essential Classics program, 24 October 2011

External links

• Journalisted - Articles written by Matthew d'Ancona

Media offices
Preceded by Kim Fletcher	Deputy Editor of the Sunday Telegraph 1998–2006	Succeeded by Richard Ellis
Preceded by Boris Johnson	Editor of The Spectator 2006–2009	Succeeded by Fraser Nelson

Persondata
Name	Dancona, Matthew
Alternative names
Short description	Journalist
Date of birth	27 January 1968
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death