Tristram Hunt

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The Honourable
Dr Tristram Hunt
FRHistS MP
Tristram Cropped.jpg
Stoke-on-Trent Central MP, Tristram Hunt
Member of Parliament
for Stoke-on-Trent Central
Incumbent
Assumed office
6 May 2010
Preceded by Mark Fisher
Majority 5,566 (17.1%)
Personal details
Born Tristram Julian William Hunt
(1974-05-31) 31 May 1974 (age 38)
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Nationality British
Political party Labour
Relations Julian Hunt (father)
Giles Foden (brother-in-law)
Children one son, two daughters
Residence London and Stoke-on-Trent
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge; University of Chicago
Occupation Historian, broadcaster, columnist, politician
Profession Teaching
Website tristramhunt.com

Tristram Julian William Hunt FRHistS (born 31 May 1974) is a British Labour Party politician, activist, historian, broadcaster and newspaper columnist, who is currently the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central. He also teaches and lectures on Modern British History at Queen Mary, University of London[1] in Mile End, East London. He has written several books and appeared as broadcaster for history programmes on television. Hunt is a regular writer for The Guardian and The Observer.[2]

Hunt is a member of the Labour Party, and after supporting the party as an activist for several years and working as a member of the party's staff, he entered the political arena professionally, becoming an MP at the 2010 general election.

Contents

Early life and education [edit]

Hunt is the son of Julian Hunt, a meteorologist and leader of the Labour Group on Cambridge City Council in 1972-3, who was made a Life Peer of the British Labour Party at the request of Tony Blair in 2000.[3] After attending University College School where he got two As (History and Latin) and a B (English Literature) , Tristram Hunt read History at Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Chicago, and was for a time an Associate Fellow of the Centre for History and Economics at King's College, Cambridge. His PhD, Civic thought in Britain, c.1820– c.1860, was taken at Cambridge and was awarded in 2000. While at Cambridge he was the president of the Footlights, where he was a contemporary of David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

Career as an historian [edit]

Hunt was a fellow of the Institute for Public Policy Research and is on the board of the New Local Government Network (2004). He has made many appearances on television, presenting programmes on the English Civil War (2002), the theories of Isaac Newton, and the rise of the middle class, and makes regular appearances on BBC Radio 4, having presented broadcasts on such topics as the history of the signature.

Hunt's main area of expertise is urban history, specifically during the Victorian era, and it is this subject which provided him with his second book, Building Jerusalem. This book, covering such notable Victorian minds as John Ruskin, Joseph Chamberlain and Thomas Carlyle received many favourable reviews, but some criticism, notably a scathing review in the Times Literary Supplement by J. Mordaunt Crook ('The Future was Bromley', TLS, 13 August 2004). In 2006, Hunt wrote Making our Mark, a publication celebrating CPRE's eightieth anniversary. He then completed a BBC series entitled The Protestant Revolution, examining the influence of Protestantism on British and international attitudes to work and leisure for broadcast on BBC Four.[4]

Turning to biography, Hunt wrote The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (U.S. title: Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels), published in May 2009. For the book, Hunt researched at German and Russian libraries and begins with an account of the author's own trip to Engels, Russia. The biography received a number of favourable reviews, including one from Roy Hattersley, the former deputy leader of the Labour party, in The Observer.[5] In 2007 he was a judge for the Samuel Johnson Prize,[6] the winner being Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

Political career [edit]

Hunt worked for the Labour Party at Millbank Tower in the 1997 general election; he also worked at the Party's headquarters during the following 2001 general election; during the 2005 general election he supported Oona King's campaign in Bethnal Green.

In the summer of 2007 he failed to be selected for the safe Labour seat of Liverpool West Derby, where Stephen Twigg was selected instead,[7] and in 2009 for the safe seat of Leyton and Wanstead.[8]

Hunt was selected to stand for Stoke-on-Trent Central on 1 April 2010.[9][10] Because the candidacy was filled just before the election, the shortlist was drawn up by Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee selection panel, with none on the shortlist local to Stoke-on-Trent. This led to the secretary of the Constituency Labour Party, Gary Elsby, standing as an independent candidate against Hunt in protest.[11][12] Despite the controversy of being "parachuted in" to the district Hunt was elected with 38.8% of the vote. The closest fought contest in the constituency in decades, he still boasted a majority of 5,566 over his nearest rival.[13]

Political views [edit]

Hunt is a Trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund and has a column with the British Sunday paper The Observer. He wrote an essay in the New Statesman comparing Cromwell's Republic to the Islamic fundamentalism dominant in Afghanistan at that time, 2001.[14]

Speaking of his constituency he said "The key to helping manufacturing is investing in education and schools and also selling Stoke nationally and internationally as a place to invest."[15] He also criticized the local council's decision to "to try to obliterate the past out and sort of 'cleanse', removing the old bottle ovens and other relics".[16] He instead believed that the city's reputation as a quality pottery maker should be exploited.[16] He also stated he could better serve his constituency if he were to become a government minister.[16] As of April 2013, he was made shadow junior education minister replacing Karen Buck who became PPS to Ed Miliband.

Personal life [edit]

He is married with one son and two daughters. He lives in London. His brother-in-law is the author Giles Foden.

Titles from birth [edit]

  • Tristram Hunt (1974–2000)
  • The Hon Tristram Hunt (May 2000–October 2000)[17]
  • The Hon Dr Tristram Hunt (October 2000 – 2010)[18]
  • The Hon Dr Tristram Hunt MP (2010–present)

References [edit]

  1. ^ Tristram Hunt, Queen Mary, University of London.
  2. ^ "Tristram Hunt". BBC. 21 March 2007. Retrieved 8 May 2010. 
  3. ^ Peerage creations since 1997 House of Lords: Library Note
  4. ^ BBC, The Protestant Revolution.
  5. ^ Roy Hattersley "A communist and a gentleman", The Observer, 26 April 2009.
  6. ^ "JUDGES OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2007". BBC 4. Retrieved 8 May 2010. 
  7. ^ Nick Coligan, "Stephen Twigg ends career of another political stalwart", Liverpool Echo, 18 September 2007.
  8. ^ Claire Hack "Leyton/Wanstead: Labour candidate announcement expected tomorrow", East London and West Essex Guardian, 26 February 2010.
  9. ^ Michael Crick "The battle for Stoke-on-Trent Central", Newsnight (BBC blog), 19 March 2010.
  10. ^ "Tristram Hunt picked to represent Labour in election". BBC News. 1 April 2010. Retrieved 1 April 2010. 
  11. ^ Roland Watson (2 April 2010). "Grassroots revolt as Labour parachutes Tristram Hunt into Stoke seat". London: The Times. Retrieved 2 April 2010. 
  12. ^ "Labour secretary to stand against party in Stoke". BBC News. 2 April 2010. Retrieved 8 May 2010. 
  13. ^ "Elections 2010: Tristram Hunt wins Stoke-on-Trent Central seat". The Sentinel. 7 May 2010. Retrieved 8 May 2010. 
  14. ^ Tristram Hunt, "Britain's very own Taliban," New Statesman, 17 December 2001.
  15. ^ "Stoke-on-Trent 'needs government help'". BBC News. 17 April 2010. Retrieved 8 May 2010. 
  16. ^ a b c Parkinson, Justin (8 February 2011). "Historian Tristram Hunt on switching to life as an MP". BBC News. Retrieved 6 March 2011. 
  17. ^ thePeerage.com, Person Page - 19143.
  18. ^ Newton Library Catalogue, University of Cambridge, Civic thought in Britain, c.1820- c.1860. Hunt, Tristram Julian William.

External links [edit]

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Mark Fisher		 Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central
2010–present		 Incumbent
Authority control
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