CHRISTOPHER HIBBERT was born Arthur Raymond Hibbert, the second of three children, on March 5, 1924 in Enderby vicarage, Leicestershire, to the incumbent vicar, Canon H.V. Hibbert and his wife Maud.

He was educated at Radley College and Oriel College, Oxford, but university life was interrupted when he joined the London Irish Rifles in 1943, serving as an infantry officer with the 8th Army during the Italian campaign.

He was awarded the Military Cross during an attack on the German fortification on the River Senio and he was later wounded twice while fighting with the partisans during the battle of Lake Camacchio.

Mr Hibbert returned to Oxford after the war where he met his wife, Sue (née Piggford), a fellow undergraduate (St Anne’s). They married in 1948. After graduating, he began a career as a land surveyor with Nicholas estate agents and later started his own business, Hibbert and Co., in partnership with Roderick Sergeantson, whose offices for many years were in Bell Street, Henley.

His heart wasn’t in estate agency and he started to write in his spare time, becoming television critic for Truth magazine.

His first book, The Road To Tyburn, was accepted by Longman, Green and Co. and he went on to pen more than 50 books spanning a wide range of subjects, from the Battle of Agincourt to a biography of Benjamin Disraeli.

His favourite subject was Italy. He wrote about the Medici, Garibaldi, Mussolini, Venice, Florence and Rome. He was described by Professor J H Plumb as a “writer of the highest ability” and by the New Statesman as the “pearl of biographers”.

In the words of the Times Educational Supplement he was “perhaps the most gifted popular historian we have”. The Sunday Times wrote that “Christopher Hibbert couldn’t write a dull word if he tried”.

After Mr Hibbert produced his biography of Samuel Johnson (a hero of his), he was asked to become president of the Johnson Society in 1980.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was awarded a D Phil by Leicester University in 2000.

Amid his broad list of likes, he enjoyed gardening, cooking and crosswords.

Mr Hibbert died on December 21, 2008 in Townlands Hospital in Henley after a short illness. The town had been his home since 1954.

He had just over 60 years of an extraordinarily happy marriage. He will be very much missed by his family and his many friends.