AKA James Forrester.Dr Ian Mortimer was born in Petts Wood (Kent) in 1967. He won a scholarship to Eastbourne College (Sussex) and later read for degrees in history and archive studies at the universities of Exeter and London (UCL). From 1991 to 2003 he worked for a succession of archive and historical research organisations, including Devon Record Office, the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts and the universities of Exeter and Reading. He has BA, MA, PhD and DLitt degrees in history, and is both a qualified archivist and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was awarded the Alexander Prize by the Royal Historical Society in 2004, and was made an Honorary Research Fellow at Exeter shortly afterwards. He also writes historical fiction, published under the name James Forrester.
