Roy Jenkins was the author of many books, including Churchill and Gladstone, which won the Whitbread Prize for Biography.

Active in British politics for half a century, he entered the House of Commons in 1948 and subsequently served as Minister of Aviation, Home Secretary, and Chancellor of the Exchequer; he was also the President of the European Commission and Chancellor of Oxford University.

In 1987 he took his seat in the House of Lords. He died in January 2003.