Background and career
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (15 April 1940 – 5 October 2026), was an English novelist, politician and convicted criminal. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Louth (Lincolnshire) from 1969 to 1974, but did not seek re-election after almost going bankrupt. Archer revived his fortunes as a novelist with his third novel Kane and Abel (1979). It remains one of the best-selling books in the world, with an estimated 34 million copies sold globally. Overall, his books have sold more than 320 million copies worldwide. Archer returned to politics and was the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party from 1985 to 1986; he resigned after a newspaper accused him of paying money to a sex worker. In 1987, he won a libel suit against the paper and was awarded large damages because of this claim. He was made a life peer in 1992 and subsequently became the first Conservative candidate to be selected as a candidate for mayor of London. He ended his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in the case in 1987. In 2001, he was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice, ending his active political career. He was released early in 2003. Archer retired from the House of Lords in 2024. He died in October 2026, aged 86.
Jeffrey Howard Archer was born on 15 April 1940 at the City of London Maternity Hospital in Holloway, London. Shortly after Archer's birth, his family moved to Somerset, settling in Weston-super-Mare, where Archer spent most of his early life. Archer's parents were William Archer (c. 1876-1956) and Lola Archer née Cook (1913-2001). William was 64 years old when Archer was born, and nearly 40 years his wife's senior. William was a bigamist, fraudster, and conman who impersonated another William Archer, a deceased war medal holder. He was at different times employed as a chewing gum salesman in New York and a mortgage broker in London. In the latter capacity, he was charged at the Old Bailey with a series of fraud offences. On being released on bail, he absconded to the U.S. under the name of William Grimwood. In the U.S., William fathered a child, Rosemary Turner (21 June 1917 – 11 October 1986), Jeffrey's half-sister. In 1940, Rosemary married lawyer Brien McMahon, who went on to become a Democratic senator for Connecticut (1945–1952) and a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952. After McMahon's death that year, Rosemary married, in 1953, the Ambassador of Belgium to the United States, Baron Robert Silvercruys. Archer's mother, Lola Archer (born Lola Cook, and later Lola Hayne), became the first female journalist at the family's local paper, The Weston & Somerset Mercury. At 17, Lola had an illegitimate child, a daughter named Wendy, who was given away for adoption. She later met William, and had second illegitimate child, a son named Jeffrey, who was also given away for adoption. In 1939, William and Lola married; when Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in 1940, he was her third child and first legitimate child.
In 1951, Archer won a scholarship to Wellington School in Somerset (not Wellington College in Berkshire, as he was later inclined to claim) after passing the 11-plus. At this time his mother, Lola, was employed as a journalist on Weston's local newspaper, the Weston Mercury. She wrote a weekly column entitled "Over the Teacups", and frequently wrote about Jeffrey, calling him Tuppence. Although Archer enjoyed the local fame this brought him, it caused him to be the victim of bullying while at Wellington School. Archer left school with O-levels in English literature, art and history. He then spent a few years in a variety of jobs, including training with the army and a short period with the Metropolitan Police. He later worked as a physical education teacher, first at Vicar's Hill, a preparatory school in Hampshire, and later at Dover College in Kent.
In 1963, Archer was offered a place at the University of Oxford Delegacy of Extra-Mural Studies to study for a Diploma of Education. The course was based in the department, and Archer became a member of Brasenose College. There have been claims that Archer provided false evidence of his academic qualifications to Brasenose, the apparent citing of an U.S. institution which was actually a bodybuilding club, for instance, in gaining admission to the course. It has also been alleged Archer provided false statements about three non-existent A-Level passes and a U.S. university degree. Although the diploma course only lasted a year, Archer spent a total of three years at Oxford. At Oxford, Archer was successful in athletics, competing in sprinting and hurdling, and became president of the Oxford University Athletic Club in 1965–1966. His opposite number at the University of Cambridge, Wendell Mottley, became a lifelong friend. Television coverage survives of him making false starts in a 1964 sprint race, but he was not disqualified. He gained a blue in athletics and went on to run for England, and once competed for Great Britain. His times of 10.6 seconds for 100 metres and 9.6 seconds for 100 yards (91.44 metres) are the joint second fastest and joint fastest times respectively, by a University of Oxford student. Archer raised money for the charity Oxfam, obtaining the support of The Beatles in a fundraising drive. The band accepted his invitation to visit the Principal's lodge at Brasenose College, where they were photographed with Archer and dons of the college, although they did not play there. The critic Sheridan Morley, then a student at Merton, was present and recalled the occasion:
At the interval I went to the toilet, and there beside me was Ringo Starr. He asked if I knew this Jeffrey Archer bloke. I said everyone in Oxford was trying to work out who he was. Ringo said: "He strikes me as a nice enough fella, but he's the kind of bloke who would bottle your piss and sell it."
After leaving Oxford, Archer continued as a charity fundraiser, initially working for the National Birthday Trust, a medical charity that promoted safe childbirth, before joining the United Nations Association (UNA) as its chief fundraiser. The then chairman of the UNA, Humphry Berkeley, alleged that there were numerous discrepancies in Archer's expense claims while he worked at the UNA. Around this time, Archer began a career in politics, serving as a Conservative councillor for Havering on the Greater London Council (1967–1970). Archer set up his own fundraising and public relations company, Arrow Enterprises, in 1969. That same year he opened an art gallery, the Archer Gallery, in Mayfair. It specialised in modern art, including pieces by the sculptor and painter Leon Underwood. The gallery ultimately lost money, however, and Archer sold it two years later.
