John Saville

John Saville born "Orestes Stamatopoulos" (2 April 1916 – 13 June 2009) was a Greek-British Marxist historian, long associated with Hull University. He was one of the most influential writers on British Labour History in the second half of the twentieth century, renowned for his great work, the Dictionary of Labour Biography.

Life and career

He was born Orestes Stamatopoulos in 1916, in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire to Greek parents. He took the surname Saville from his mother's second husband, and was brought up in Romford.

He won a scholarship to Royal Liberty School in London and went on to study at the London School of Economics, where he joined the CPGB and met his soon-to-be wife, Constance (Saunders). He was an active member of the Communist Party until 1956 and also fought in the Second World War on the Liverpool Docks and in India. Called up in 1940 after a spell of employment, he had the leftwing equivalent of a good war: "I had several large-scale quarrels with authority, although I was a good and efficient soldier." Against the party line, he refused to take a commission, but advanced rapidly from anti-aircraft gunner to gunnery sergeant major instructor and regimental sergeant major, engaged in political work wherever he went - especially, from 1943 to 1946, in India.