Antony Copley
British historian (1937-2016)
Antony R. H. Copley (1 July 1937 – 18 July 2016) was a British historian. He was an honorary professor at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and specialised in nineteenth century French history and modern Indian history.
He was born on 1 July 1937 in Hertfordshire, the son of Alan Copley, a solicitor, and Iris Copley, and educated at Gresham's School and Worcester College, Oxford.
In 1967, he joined the staff at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and was granted an honorary professorship when he retired.
In 1959 Copley was found by the police in a public lavatory and arrested for importuning with immoral purposes. On the advice of his solicitor father, he pleaded guilty. At the time of his death he was looking forward to a general pardon for men who like himself had been convicted of homosexual acts.
“Antony Copley” enters the record as british historian (1937-2016). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Antony, Copley and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Antony Copley” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Antony, Copley and British provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q26761762. VIAF identifies the subject as 85092015. The Library of Congress control number is n86146202. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 2016, 1967 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “Antony Copley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.