Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper was born at Glanton, in Northumberland, England in 1914, the son of a country doctor. Trevor-Roper won scholarships, first to Charterhouse, then to Christ Church, Oxford, where he won the Craven, Hertford and Ireland prizes. He took a double-first at Oxford, and soon afterwards he published a study of Archbishop Laud. During the Second World War Trevor-Roper worked in British intelligence; in 1945 he was assigned by his superiors to write a report on the death of Hitler, which became The Last Days of Hitler. After the war, in 1946, Trevor-Roper returned to Oxford as a Student (fellow) of Christ Church, where he was a history tutor until 1957, and Censor (dean) from… 1947 to 1952. In 1957 he was made Regius Professor of Modern History at the university from 1957 to 1980. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher created Trevor-Roper a life peer as Lord Dacre of Glanton. He was then Master of Peterhouse College, Cambridge from 1980 to 1987, and became an honorary fellow in 1987, when he retired Trevor-Roper was a prolific writer whose topics ranged from medieval to contemporary history. He died in January of 2003 at the age of 89.
Thomas Babington Macaulay was born in Leicestershire, England on October 25, 1800. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge University. He became a lawyer, but continued to be interested in politics. He became a member of Parliament and rose to the peerage in 1857. Although he held a number of important cabinet posts, the effects of his sweeping educational reform, while in India, are his most enduring contribution to the Whig government. His main literary work was his multi-volume The History of England. He died on December 28, 1859.