Kate Williams (historian)

Early life and education

Born in 1978, Williams was educated at Edgbaston High School for Girls, Birmingham. She has a BA and DPhil from Somerville College, Oxford, where she started as a College Scholar and received the Violet Vaughan Morgan University Scholarship. She has MAs from Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway, University of London. She began researching Emma Hamilton while studying for her doctorate.

Career

Williams has lectured MA degree studies in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. In the summer of 2015, Williams took up a role as Professor of Public Engagement with History at the University of Reading.

Publishing

Williams has had academic essays published in various journals and books:

Williams writes articles on history for British newspapers including The Daily Telegraph, and reviews for BBC History, History Today and the Financial Times.

In 2010 she was a judge for the Biographer's Club Tony Lothian First Biography Prize, the Book Drum Tournament 2010, and the Litro/IGGY International Young Person's Short Story Award.

A short story, "The Weakness of Hearts", was published in issue 104 of Litro literary magazine.

Books

Her first book, England's Mistress, a biography of Emma Hamilton, was published by Random House in the UK and US (under the imprint Ballantine Books). It was short-listed for the Marsh/English Speaking Union Prize for the best biography of 2005–06, was selected as a Book of the Year in The Times and The Independent, and broadcast as Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. A film adaptation is in production with Picture Palace, and a stage musical is also in development.

Becoming Queen, about the youth of Queen Victoria and her cousin, Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, was published in 2008. It was serialised in the The Sunday Telegraph and it was a Book of the Year in the The Spectator and Tatler. The Times selected it as one of the Top 50 Paperbacks of 2009.

Her third biography for Random House, entitled Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon looks at the life of Joséphine de Beauharnais and was published in 2013.

Williams has written a biography of the formative years of Queen Elizabeth II, entitled Young Elizabeth: The Making of Our Queen. It was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, part of Orion Books, in May 2012. The audio book version is read by Williams herself.

Along with Alison Weir, Tracy Borman and Sarah Gristwood, Williams wrote The Ring and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings 1066–2011. The book was published by Random House, and was serialised in the Daily Telegraph.

Williams's first novel, The Pleasures of Men, about a young girl obsessed with a serial killer in Spitalfields in 1840, was published by Penguin Books in the UK and Disney Hyperion in the US and in Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Brazil.

William's second novel, The Storms of War, was published in 2014 by Orion. Set during the First World War, the novel follows the lives of an Anglo-German family struggling to survive the home front. Once popular with their neighbours, they are now shunned by society which affects each member individually. Despite these differences, their effort towards the war on the British side does not waver and through these war experiences they learn some of the most valuable lessons in life and family relationships. A review in The Independent outlines the essence of William's novel, and ends with high acclaim for her second piece of fiction.

The second in the series, The Edge of the Fall, was published in November 2015 also by Orion.

Television and radio

Williams appears frequently on radio and TV as a presenter and expert, specialising in social, constitutional and royal history. She commented extensively on the 2011 Royal Wedding and appears often on BBC Breakfast, Newsnight, The Review Show, Sky News, BBC News 24, the Today programme, Broadcasting House, Night Waves, Woman's Hour, Channel Five and various American channels, discussing history and culture and reviewing the news. She covered the Queen's Address to Parliament on BBC One in 2012 and the Queen's Speech for BBC Parliament.

Williams was the social historian on the BBC Two series Restoration Home, which aired from 2011 to 2013.

She presented Timewatch: Young Victoria for BBC Two, acclaimed by The Guardian as "telly history at its best" and The Secret History of Edward VII for Channel Five.

She appears often on documentaries, discussing history, literature and culture, including Faulks on Fiction and all three series of The Great British Bake Off, as well as documentaries on subjects including Queen Victoria, Balmoral, Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper, Nelson's Trafalgar, Elizabeth II and Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home.

She wrote and presented the documentary The Grandfather of Self-Help, about Samuel Smiles, for BBC Radio 4. She is also the presenter of a Radio 4 documentary on the history of the smile, broadcast in June 2012.

Williams is the "Historian in Residence" in Frank Skinner's 2014 radio show The Rest Is History.

Williams is a regular panellist on The Quizeum, which began airing in spring 2015.

Williams was the winner of Celebrity Mastermind screened on 2 January 2016.

She also featured on episodes of Insert Name Here broadcast on 4 and 25 of January 2016 on BBC Two, and again in four episodes of the second series of Insert Name Here commencing with the Christmas Special on 21 December 2016.

Williams appeared in the online mini-series Inside Versailles based on the BBC Television series Versailles.

She was in Dictionary Corner on Countdown for five shows starting 6 October 2016.

On 13 Dec 2016 she appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Antiques Road Trip, partnered with Catherine Southon, against Suzannah Lipscomb and David Harper.