Postgate family
The Postgate family are an English family who have been notable in a variety of different fields. The family originated in the North York Moors, where the name is still found, and are probably connected to the Catholic recusant priest and martyr Blessed Nicholas Postgate (1596 or 1597 – 7 August 1679) who was hanged, disembowelled and quartered at York in the aftermath of the Popish Plot.
This article is otherwise concerned with John Postgate (1820–1881) and his descendents. John Postgate was an English surgeon who became Professor of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology at Queen's College, Birmingham and was a leading campaigner against food adulteration.[1]
His son John Percival Postgate (1853–1926) was professor of comparative philology at University College, London, then of Latin at the University of Liverpool from 1909 to 1920. He edited the Classical Review and the Classical Quarterly, and published both school textbooks and editions of Latin poetry. He married Edith Allen,[2] and they had six children.
His daughter Margaret (1893–1980) became Margaret Cole on her marriage in 1918 to the well known socialist economist and writer G.D.H. Cole. They wrote over 30 detective novels together between 1925 and 1948. She went into London politics and received a DBE. Her brother Raymond Postgate (1896 –1971) was notable as a socialist, journalist and editor, social historian, mystery novelist and gourmet. He founded The Good Food Guide in 1951, which was ahead of its time in being largely based on volunteer reports on restaurants. He married Daisy Lansbury (1892–1971), daughter of the politician George Lansbury (1859 –1940) who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935, and whose biography was among Raymond's books.
Raymond's children include the microbiologist John Postgate FRS, now Professor Emeritus of Microbiology at the University of Sussex, who is also known as a writer on, and sometime performer of, jazz.[3][4] His brother Oliver Postgate (1925 –2008), was an animator, puppeteer and writer, who created television series such as Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers from the 1950s to the 1980s.[5] Their cousin the actress Dame Angela Lansbury (born 1925) has had a film and stage career spanning over 70 years.
Another son of John Percival Postgate was Ormond Oliver Postgate (1905-1989). His son Nicholas Postgate, FBA (born 5 November 1945) is a British academic and Assyriologist. He is Professor of Assyriology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.[6]
Biographies and autobiograpies
- Cole, Margaret (1949) Growing up into Revolution
- Cole, Margaret (1971) The Life of G. D. H. Cole
- Mitchison, N., (1982) Margaret Cole, 1893-1980 ISBN 0-7163-0482-1
- Vernon, B. D. (1986) Margaret Cole, 1893-1980: A Political Biography ISBN 0-7099-2611-1
- John & Mary Postgate, A Stomach For Dissent: The Life Of Raymond Postgate, (Keele University Press, 1994).
- Seeing Things: An Autobiography, Oliver Postgate; illustrated by Peter Firmin, 2000 - ISBN 0-330-39000-7; republished in 2009 - ISBN 978-1-84767-840-9
- John Postgate (2013), Microbes, Music and Me, ISBN 9781861511003
- John Postgate (2001) "Lethal Lozenges and Tainted Tea: A Biography of John Postgate (1820-1881)". ISBN1-858558-178-8
References
- ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 46. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^ "Postgate, John Percival (PSTT872JP)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Royal Society list of Fellows; Postgate was elected in 1977.
- ^ Cambridge University Press, author biography
- ^ Hayward, Anthony (2012). "Postgate, (Richard) Oliver (1925–2008)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
- ^ "(John) Nicholas POSTGATE". People of Today. Debrett's. Retrieved 14 February 2014.