Peter James Stanford is an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, editor

Copy editing

Copy editing is the work that an editor does to improve the formatting, style, and accuracy of text. Unlike general editing, copy editing might not involve changing the substance of the text. Copy refers to written or typewritten text for typesetting, printing, or publication...

, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, and presenter

Presenter

A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

. An alumnus of St Anselm's College, Birkenhead

St Anselm's College, Birkenhead

St. Anselm's College is a Roman Catholic voluntary aided grammar school located in Merseyside, England. It is one of four Catholic schools in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, and one of three Irish Christian Brothers schools in the Merseyside area...

, he was the editor of The Catholic Herald

The Catholic Herald

The Catholic Herald is a London-based Roman Catholic newspaper, published in broadsheet format and retailing at £1.50 ....

, and a regular contributor to the New Statesman

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

.

He has written many books, mainly biographies

Biography

A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...

 and books about religion. Since 2007 Stanford has written for The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

, The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

and The Independent on Sunday.

Stanford was editor of The Catholic Herald from which he resigned. He, along with Kate Saunders

Kate Saunders

Kate Saunders is an English author, actress and journalist. The daughter of the early public relations advocate Basil Saunders and his journalist wife Betty , Saunders has worked for newspapers and magazines in the UK, including The Sunday Times, Sunday Express, Daily Telegraph, She and...

, authored the book Catholics and Sex in 1992. Stanford and Saunders later presented a television series based on the book on Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

.

Books

Stanford has written many books since leaving The Catholic Herald in 1992:

• Cardinal Hume (1993) a biography of Basil Hume
• Lord Longford (1994) a biography of Lord Longford
  Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford
  Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford KG, PC , known as the Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician, author, and social reformer...
  
  , the British Labour Party
  Labour Party (UK)
  The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
  
   politician and penal reform
  Prison reform
  Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system.-History:Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last couple of centuries...
  
   campaigner
• The Anatomy of the Catholic Church (co-written with Gerard Noel) (1994)
• The Catholics and their Houses (co-written with Leanda De Lisle) (1995)
• The Devil (1996), which was later made into a television series
• The She-Pope (1998), an investigation into the legend of Pope Joan
  Pope Joan
  Pope Joan is a legendary female Pope who, it is purported, reigned for a few years some time in the Middle Ages. The story first appeared in the writings of 13th-century chroniclers, and subsequently spread through Europe...
  
  
• Bronwen Astor (1999) a biography of Bronwen Astor
• The Legend of Pope Joan (1999)
• Faith (2000)
• Lord Longford's Prison Diary (ed.) (2000)
• Heaven (2002)
• The Outcasts' Outcast (2003), a new biography of Lord Longford
• Why I am still a Catholic (ed.) (2005)
• C Day-Lewis (2007)
• 50 Ideas You Really Need to Know: Religion (2010)

Several of Stanford's books have also been published in the United States

United States

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

 and some of his books have been translated into German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

.

Affiliations

• Stanford is the Director of the Frank Longford Charitable Trust, and one of the judges of The Longford Prize
  The Longford Prize
  The Longford Prize is an annual award presented to an organisation or individual working in the field of social or penal reform. It began in 2001 and is named in memory of Lord Longford, a British Labour Party politician and penal reform campaigner....
  
  . He is also chairman of the disability charity, "Aspire".

External links

• Photograph of Peter Stanford, from his profile on the AP Watt website
• Find Articles: Peter Stanford, articles by or about Peter Stanford from various publications
• New Statesman archive: Peter Stanford