J. P. Carswell

John Patrick Carswell CB FRSL was an English civil servant and author who served as Secretary of the British Academy from 1978 to 1983. Professionally and as an author, he was known as J. P. Carswell, although he published some of his books under the name John Carswell.

Early life

The son of Donald Carswell, a barrister and author, and of Catherine Carswell, also an author, he was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, and St John's College, Oxford.

Career

Carswell completed his degree course at Oxford in 1940, during the Second World War, and then joined the British Army. He served from 1940 to 1946, when he decided to enter HM Civil Service. His first significant appointment was as Joint Secretary to the Committee on Economic and Financial Problems of Provision for Old Age, from 1953 to 1954, and he was promoted Assistant Secretary in 1955. He became Principal Private Secretary to the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance in 1955 and was at HM Treasury from 1961 to 1964. While at the Treasury, Professor Asa Briggs invited Carswell to deliver a series of lectures in 1963 at the University of Sussex on the European context of the English Revolution of 1688. These later formed the basis for his book The Descent on England. In 1964, he became Under-secretary in the Office of the Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science. Later the same year he transferred to become Under-secretary at the Department of Education and Science and Ministry of Health, remaining until 1974. He was Secretary to the University Grants Committee from 1974 until 1977, and his last appointment was as Secretary of the British Academy for five years, 1978 to 1983.
He was a member of the Garrick Club.

Publications

Books

The Prospector: being the life and times of Rudolf Erich Raspe , 1950
The Old Cause: Three Biographical Studies in Whiggism, 1954
The South Sea Bubble, 1960, 2nd edition 1993
The Diary and Political Papers of George Bubb Dodington, 1965
The Civil Servant and his World, 1966
The Descent on England: A Study of the English Revolution of 1688 and its European Background, 1969
From Revolution to Revolution: England 1688-1776, 1973
Lives and Letters, 1978
The Exile: a memoir of Ivy Litvinov, 1983
Government and the Universities in Britain: Programme and Performance 1960-1980, 1986
The Porcupine: a life of Algernon Sidney, 1989
The Saving of Kenwood and the Northern Heights, 1992

Articles

Algernon Sidney's 'Court Maxims': The Biographical Importance of a Transcript, in: Historical Research 62, February 1989, pp. 96–103
Lost for words on "the heritage", letter, The Times, 8 September 1983, p. 11

He also contributed to the Times Literary Supplement and other periodicals.

Honours

Companion of the Order of the Bath, 1977
Honorary Research Fellow, Department of History, University College London, 1983
Life Member of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, 1984
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 1984

Family

In 1944, Carswell married Ianthe Elstob, and they had two daughters. Ianthe Elstob was the daughter of a naval officer and his wife Ivy Elstob and the stepdaughter of Irving Davis, author of the posthumous A Catalan Cookery Book: a Collection of Impossible Recipes. Ianthe Carswell died in 2001. In 1957, with Sheila Jones, she had formed the National Committee for the Abolition of Nuclear Tests, which evolved into the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.