Antony Evelyn Alcock was a historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and Ulster Unionist politician.

Born in Valletta, Malta, he grew up in Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

 and Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

 while at Harrow School

Harrow School

Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...

 from 1950 to 1954. Following his education he was Commissioned during National Service

National service

National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...

 into the Seaforth Highlanders

Seaforth Highlanders

The Seaforth Highlanders was a historic regiment of the British Army associated with large areas of the northern Highlands of Scotland. The Seaforth Highlanders have varied in size from two battalions to seventeen battalions during the Great War...

. After leaving the Army in 1957 he studied History and Political Science at McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

 Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 following which he moved to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and 1962 he gained an MA in History from Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. He studied for his doctorate the history of South Tyrol

South Tyrol

South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...

, at the Graduate Institute of International Studies

Graduate Institute of International Studies

The Graduate Institute of International Studies, best known as HEI , was founded in 1927 as one of the first institutions in the world dedicated to the study of international relations...

 in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 between 1963 and 1968. In September 1974 he became Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of West European Studies at the University of Ulster

University of Ulster

The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...

, where he stayed until 2001.

His first political involvement was as chairman of the County Londonderry

County Londonderry

The place name Derry is an anglicisation of the old Irish Daire meaning oak-grove or oak-wood. As with the city, its name is subject to the Derry/Londonderry name dispute, with the form Derry preferred by nationalists and Londonderry preferred by unionists...

 campaign to ‘Keep Britain in Europe’ during the 1975 referendum. In the same year he was tasked by the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention

Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention

The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention was an elected body set up in 1975 by the UK Labour government of Harold Wilson as an attempt to deal with constitutional issues surrounding the status of Northern Ireland....

, Sir Robert Lowrey to produce a paper on similar conflicts in Europe.

In the 1996 elections to the Northern Ireland Forum

Northern Ireland Forum

The Northern Ireland Forum was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Belfast Agreement in 1998....

, Alcock was elected as one of the two UUP

Ulster Unionist Party

The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...

 'top up' candidates for the forum, along with Sir John Gorman.