Postgate , Raymond William , 1896-1971 , socialist historian and journalist

Raymond William Postgate was born in Cambridge, 6 November, 1896, the eldest son of Professor J P Postgate, a classical scholar. He was educated at Perse School Cambridge and Liverpool College and attended St John's College, Oxford. During World War One he sought exemption from military service as a conscientious objector but without the defence of a religious objection, was jailed for two weeks during 1916. In 1918, he married Daisy Lansbury, daughter of Labour politician George Lansbury. They later had two sons John and Oliver. Postgate formed socialist connections through the Lansbury family and also through his sister Margaret, who married the Socialist economist and historian G D H Cole. Postgate became a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920, but broke from the party in 1922 to join the Labour Party. Postgate started his career in 1918 as a journalist and writer, working on the Daily Herald, and Lansbury's Weekly, where he covered the General Strike of 1926. He became department editor for Encyclopaedia Britannica from 1927-1928, was a European representative for Alfred A Knopf publishers from 1929-1949 and edited Tribune from 1940-1942. He used his socialist beliefs to write mystery novels within a social and economic context, and his crime novel Verdict of Twelve became a best-seller in 1940. Among Postgate's other works were three detective stories, a novel, short stories, many articles about labour and radical history and biographies including one of his father-in-law George Lansbury. From 1942 to 1949, Postgate worked at the Board of Trade and Ministry of Supply. In 1949, due to his life-long passion for good food and wine, Postgate decided to make an effort to raise standards by editing the reports of a band of volunteers on their visits to British hotels and restaurants. The highly influential Good Food Club was born as a result, of which he was president. He became editor of the Good Food Guide and wrote many articles and books as a food critic and wine writer. He was awarded the OBE in 1966. Raymond Postgate died on March 29, 1971.