author
Ian C. Hannah
1874–1944
A lively historian and travel writer, he brought places, buildings, and old stories to life with the eye of a scholar and the curiosity of a guide. His work ranges from regional history to wider studies of Scotland, Europe, and eastern Asia.
1 Audiobook
Capitals of the Northlands: Tales of Ten Cities
by Ian C. Hannah
About the author
Born in Chichester in 1874, Ian C. Hannah was a British academic, writer, and later a politician. He studied at Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge, and built a career that moved between Britain and North America. Early on, he served as president of the University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, and later became professor of church history at Oberlin Theological Seminary in Ohio.
As an author, he wrote books on history, architecture, religion, and place, including works on Sussex, Berwick and the Lothians, East Anglia, Scotland, and the cities of northern Europe. Many of his books were illustrated by his wife, the American artist Edith Brand Hannah, which helped give them an especially vivid, approachable feel.
He returned to Britain in the 1920s and was elected Conservative MP for Bilston in 1935, serving until his death in 1944. Even with that public career, he is still easy to remember as a writer who loved making history feel close, local, and human.