David Kynaston, 66

Job: Visiting professor, Kingston University, since 2001. The City’s favourite historian. Family: Wife Lucy Robbins, who works for Age Concern, and three adult children. Education: New College, Oxford (BA Modern History); PhD from London School of Economics. Writings: Three volumes of the City’s history; official histories of stockbrokers Cazenove, Siegmund Warburg; the LIFFE futures market, the FT and HSBC. Also several acclaimed social histories of Britain. Leisure: A great cricket aficionado and MCC member who has written several books on the subject. Supporter of football club Aldershot Town, where he grew up, and a connoisseur of Bob Dylan’s music.

Heroes: The historian E P Thompson, author of The Making Of The English Working Class, who wrote biographies of William Morris and William Blake. Kynaston describes him as the ‘high priest’ of social historians from which he has drawn great inspiration.