Paul Barker (writer)

rdf:langString Paul Barker (writer)

rdf:langString InternetArchiveBot

rdf:langString May 2020

rdf:langString March 2018

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rdf:langString Paul Barker (24 August 1935 – 20 July 2019) was an English journalist and writer. Barker was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He grew up in Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge. He was educated at local schools in the Calder Valley and won an Exhibition (scholarship) to Brasenose College, Oxford, to read French. Before taking up his place at Oxford, he did national service and was commissioned as an officer in the Intelligence Corps, and while in the Army studied Russian language at Cambridge University in the Joint Services School for Linguists with Dennis Potter in the next hut and Potter's producer Kenith Trodd in the same hut as Barker. After taking his Oxford degree, he then went on to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris for a year as lecteur. He joined the London staff of The Times in 1959, but early in 1964 left to join the recently founded New Society as a staff writer. He went on to The Economist, but returned to New Society almost at once – in 1965 – as deputy editor. In 1968 he succeeded Timothy Raison, the first editor of New Society, and edited the magazine until 1986. Subsequently, he was a columnist for The Sunday Times and a regular writer for the London Evening Standard, The Times Literary Supplement and Prospect magazine. He was awarded a research fellowship by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 for his work on suburbia which laid the foundation for his book; The Freedoms of Suburbia (Frances Lincoln, 2009). Barker wrote on Michael Young's legacy in The Rise and Rise of Meritocracy, edited by Young Fellow Geoff Dench (Blackwell, 2006). He was a senior research fellow with the Young Foundation, as well as being a freelance journalist, broadcaster and author. Barker died on 20 July 2019, aged 83.