Matthew d'Ancona

Matthew d'Ancona
Matthew d'Ancona
Born	27 January 1968 United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Education	St Dunstan's College Magdalen College, Oxford All Souls College, Oxford
Occupation	Journalist
Known for	Editor of The Spectator Columnist for The Daily Telegraph

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

Of Italian descent, his father came from Malta to Britain to study and ended up playing youth football for Newcastle United^[2] before becoming a civil servant. His father was a Maltese tennis champion, and 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. He also showed an early aptitude for journalism by winning an essay writing competition run by The Observer on the subject of the future of British industry. He went 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 wrote a weekly political column in The Sunday Telegraph for a decade, in which role he "is treated as the best insight into Cameronism by Conservative MPs".^[3] He succeeded Boris Johnson as editor of The Spectator. On 28 August 2009 it was announced that d'Ancona would be stepping down as editor to be replaced by Fraser Nelson.

While not himself a believer,^[4] d'Ancona is also the co-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.

In January 2015, d'Ancona joined The Guardian as a weekly columnist.^[5]

References

1. "He is wise not scatty, a thoughtful intelligent man" the Guardian (17 February 2006). Retrieved 21 June 2010.
2. "Diary". The Spectator.
3. "Top 100 political journalists 2011". Total Politics.
4. Discussed briefly on BBC Radio 3's Essential Classics program, 24 October 2011.
5. "Matthew d'Ancona to join the Guardian as columnist", Guardian News and Media press release, 18 December 2014

External links

• Journalisted - Articles written by Matthew d'Ancona