Duncan Campbell-Smith

Author and historian

The cover of my new book, a narrative history of Britain's Royal Mail, is taken from a print dated around 1815: it pictures the Bath to London mail coach passing at a quick trot through a country village, with the guard collecting the early morning mail from the local sub-postmistress as the coach runs past her post office.

Masters of the Post was published by Penguin Allen Lane on November 3rd 2011. It's an authorized history, commissioned by the Royal Mail Group in 2008 and made possible by my having unfettered access to all the records held today in the British Postal Museum & Archive.

I am currently working on a commissioned history of the Standard Chartered Bank, from its beginnings in 1852 to the present day.

I hold Visiting Senior Research Fellowships at London University's Institute of Historical Research and at the Institute for Contemporary History at King's College, London. I am also on the Council of Management for the Arvon Foundation for Creative Writing.