We are sad to report the death of Professor Norman Gash, former Professor of Modern History in the University of St.Andrews, at the age of 97.

Norman Gash was known to the world as a fine historian of the Nineteenth Century, and in particular the leading expert on the life and times of Sir Robert Peel – on whom he wrote a definitive two-volume biography. His thoroughly researched books on Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Liverpool, and the politics of their age continue to command respect within the academic community.

Gash was also a leading Conservative intellectual, and at St.Andrews did much to encourage the thriving group of student activists whose members would go on to become MPs – such as Michael Fallon, Michael Forsyth, Robert B Jones – or active in the world of policy formation – such as Madsen Pirie and Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute and Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation.