Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is an award-winning historian, author, and broadcaster.
She is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Roehampton, Senior Member at St Cross College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Society of Antiquaries.
She has written and edited seven books, and received a double First, MSt, and DPhil in History from Lincoln and Balliol Colleges, Oxford, where she was a Jowett Senior Scholar. She was formerly Research Curator at Hampton Court Palace and a columnist for History Today. She was Chair of Judges for the Costa Book Awards in 2020 and is a Trustee of the Mary Rose Trust.
Suzannah is an established television presenter. She has presented history series on BBC 4, ITV, More4, Channel Five, Five Select, PBS, UKTV, National Geographic, History Channel, Yesterday, and History Hit.
She also hosts the hugely successful Not Just the Tudors podcast from History Hit. Launched in 2021, there are now more than 200 episodes. She co-hosted the award-winning podcast, Irreplaceable: A History of England in 100 Places and presented Audible’s podcast series, History’s Lost Speeches. She has appeared on a range of radio programmes, including BBC Radio 4’s A Good Read, Great Lives, Woman’s Hour, Front Row, the Today programme, and You’re Dead to Me.
Suzannah is also an experienced and engaging public speaker and has given hundreds of keynote speeches and distinguished lectures at cultural institutions, literary festivals, to businesses, universities, and schools, both across the UK and internationally.
Suzannah has written and presented fourteen history documentary series on TV, as well as featuring as an expert contributor, panellist, and royal commentator.
Suzannah’s most recent series was 4×60′ The Royals: A History of Scandals on More 4. Radio Times said ‘Suzannah Lipscomb fascinates us’ and thought the show, ‘fun and insightful’. The Times wrote, ‘our presenter’s enthusiasm carries this along nicely’. The Daily Mail thought ‘Suzannah recounted the story pacily and clearly… she presents a complex, shocking story, with enough twists to fill a novel, without losing any of the threads’.
Suzannah has also recently made a number of films for History Hit, including A Tudor Discovery: Thomas Cromwell’s Prayer Book with Professor Suzannah Lipscomb.
Before that her other series include 3×60′ Walking Tudor England for Five Select (‘riveting stuff’, The Guardian), and 2×60′ Nicholas & Alexandra: The Letters with Suzannah Lipscomb for UKTV (‘fascinating’, TV Times).
For Channel Five, she co-presented with Dan Jones 4×60′ London: 2000 Years of History (also with Rob Bell), 3×60′ Elizabeth I (‘a lively take … the two presenters … bring gravitas’, Radio Times), 3×60′ The Great Fire of London, which The Sunday Times called ‘vibrant’ (also with Rob Bell), and 3×60′ Henry VIII and His Six Wives. Watching this, The Daily Mail described Lipscomb and Jones as ‘rapidly becoming the Ant and Dec of what used to be a rather stuffy world’; The Times called them ‘engaging and knowledgeable’.
On BBC 4, Suzannah also wrote and presented Hidden Killers of the … Home. The Daily Telegraph called her ‘an engaging historian’, Radio Times said she had ‘a captivating style’, The Daily Express said the show was ‘hugely watchable’, and The Mail on Sunday concluded ‘Lipscomb … combines a clipped elegance with a matter-of-fact approach and a plucky willingness to get involved’.
For Channel Five, she wrote and presented Witch-Hunt: A Century of Murder and Henry and Anne: The Lovers Who Changed History (‘Lipscomb… gets right to the heart of her subjects and their seven-year courtship through shared personal possessions and scraps of impassioned writing’, Daily Telegraph). For ITV, she co-presented 8 x 30′ I Never Knew That About Britain. She also made two series, 6×60′ Bloody Tales of Europe and 3×60″ Bloody Tales of the Tower for National Geographic.
Suzannah has also featured as an expert contributor on shows for BBC 2, Channel 4, and Netflix, including Blood, Sex & Royalty, Time Team, and The Last Days of Anne Boleyn. The Daily Telegraph said she was ‘fascinating and lucid’. She was one of two resident historians on BBC 2’s comedy panel show, Insert Name Here, which ran for four years. And she has been a panellist on Richard Osman’s House of Games, Pointless Celebrities, and Celebrity Antiques Road Trip, and appeared several times in Dictionary Corner with Susie Dent on Countdown.
As a historian of monarchy, Suzannah has covered many royal events for television. For CTV (Canada), Suzannah commentated live on the funeral of HM the Duke of Edinburgh in April 2021, the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Duchess of Sussex in May 2018, and the wedding of HM Prince William to Catherine Princess of Wales in 2011. For NBC (USA) on MSNBC and NBC News, she commentated live on the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, the funeral of HM Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, and the coronation of HM King Charles III in May 2023.
