Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist and former politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Louth (Lincolnshire) from 1969 to 1974, but did not seek re-election after almost going bankrupt. Archer revived his fortunes as a novelist. His novel Kane and Abel (1979) remains one of the best-selling books in the world, with an estimated 34 million copies sold worldwide. Overall his books have sold more than 320 million copies worldwide.
Archer returned to politics and was the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party from 1985 to 1986; he resigned after a newspaper accused him of paying money to a prostitute. In 1987, he won a civil case and was awarded large damages because of this claim. He was made a life peer in 1992 and subsequently became the first Conservative candidate to be selected as a candidate for mayor of London. He ended his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in the case in 1987. In 2001, he was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for perjury and perverting the course of justice, ending his active political career. He was released early in 2003.
Archer retired from the House of Lords in 2024.
Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in the City of London Maternity Hospital in Holloway, London on 15 April 1940. He was two weeks old when his family moved to Somerset, eventually settling in the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, where Archer spent most of his early life.
His father, William (died 1956), was 64 years old when Jeffrey Archer was born. Early in his career, Archer gave conflicting accounts to the press of his father's supposed, but non-existent, military career. William Archer was, in fact, a bigamist, fraudster, and conman, who impersonated another William Archer, a deceased war medal holder. He was at different times employed as a chewing gum salesman in New York and a mortgage broker in London. In the latter capacity, he was charged at the Old Bailey with a series of fraud offences. On being released on bail, he absconded to the US under the name William Grimwood.
In the US, William Archer fathered a child, Rosemary Turner (21 June 1917 – 11 October 1986), Jeffrey's half-sister. In 1940 Rosemary married lawyer Brien McMahon who went on to become the Democratic senator for Connecticut (1945–1952) and a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952. After Brien McMahon's death that year, Rosemary married, in 1953, the Belgian ambassador to Washington, Baron Silvercruys. The First Lady, Mamie Eisenhower, was the guest-of-honour at their wedding.
In 1951, Archer won a scholarship to Wellington School in Somerset (not Wellington College in Berkshire, as he was later inclined to claim) after passing the 11-plus. At this time his mother, Lola, was employed as a journalist on Weston's local newspaper, the Weston Mercury. She wrote a weekly column entitled "Over the Teacups", and frequently wrote about Jeffrey, calling him 'Tuppence'. Although Archer enjoyed the local fame this brought him, it caused him to be the victim of bullying while at Wellington School.
Archer left school with O-levels in English literature, art, and history. He then spent a few years in a variety of jobs, including training with the army and a short period with the Metropolitan Police. He later worked as a physical education teacher, first at Vicar's Hill, a preparatory school in Hampshire, and later at Dover College in Kent.
In 1963 Archer was offered a place at the University of Oxford Delegacy of Extra-Mural Studies to study for a Diploma of Education. The course was based in the department, and Archer became a member of Brasenose College. There have been claims that Archer provided false evidence of his academic qualifications to Brasenose, the apparent citing of an American institution which was actually a bodybuilding club, for instance, in gaining admission to the course. It has also been alleged Archer provided false statements about three non-existent A-Level passes and a U.S. university degree. Although the diploma course only lasted a year, Archer spent a total of three years at Oxford. At Oxford, Archer was successful in athletics, competing in sprinting and hurdling, and became president of the Oxford University Athletic Club in 1965–1966. His opposite number at the University of Cambridge, Wendell Mottley, became a lifelong friend. Television coverage survives of him making false starts in a 1964 sprint race, but he was not disqualified. He gained a blue in athletics and went on to run for England, and once competed for Great Britain. His time of 10.6 seconds for 100 metres is the joint second fastest time by a University of Oxford student.
Archer raised money for the charity Oxfam, obtaining the support of The Beatles in a fundraising drive. The band accepted his invitation to visit the Principal's lodge at Brasenose College, where they were photographed with Archer and dons of the college, although they did not play there. The critic Sheridan Morley, then a student at Merton, was present and recalled the occasion:
At the interval I went to the toilet, and there beside me was Ringo Starr. He asked if I knew this Jeffrey Archer bloke. I said everyone in Oxford was trying to work out who he was. Ringo said: "He strikes me as a nice enough fella, but he's the kind of bloke who would bottle your piss and sell it."
After leaving Oxford, Archer continued as a charity fundraiser, initially working for the National Birthday Trust, a medical charity that promoted safe childbirth, before joining the United Nations Association (UNA) as its chief fundraiser. The then chairman of the UNA, Humphry Berkeley, alleged that there were numerous discrepancies in Archer's expense claims while he worked at the UNA.
Around this time, Archer began a career in politics, serving as a Conservative councillor for Havering on the Greater London Council (1967–1970).
Archer set up his own fundraising and public relations company, Arrow Enterprises, in 1969. That same year he opened an art gallery, the Archer Gallery, in Mayfair. The gallery specialised in modern art, including pieces by the sculptor and painter Leon Underwood. The gallery ultimately lost money, however, and Archer sold it two years later.
At 29, Archer was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lincolnshire constituency of Louth, holding the seat for the Conservative Party in a by-election on 4 December 1969. Archer beat Ian Gow to the selection after winning over a substantial proportion of younger members at the selection meeting. The national party had concerns about Archer's selection, specifically relating to the UNA expenses allegations made by Humphry Berkeley, himself a former Conservative MP. Berkeley tried to persuade the Conservative Central Office that Archer was unsuitable as a parliamentary candidate. Archer brought a defamation action against Berkeley and the story was kept out of the press, although a truncated version of the story did appear in The Times. The case was eventually settled out of court, with Archer agreeing to pay legal costs of around £30,000.
Louth constituency had three key areas: Louth, Cleethorpes, and Immingham. During his time as an MP, Archer was a regular at the Immingham Conservative Club in the most working-class part of the constituency. In 1970 he took part in the Kennedy Memorial Test, a 50-mile (80-kilometre) running/walking race from Louth to Skegness and back.
In parliament, Archer was on the left of the Conservative Party, rebelling against some of his party's policies. He advocated free TV licences for elderly people and was against museum entrance charges. In 1971, he employed David Mellor to deal with his correspondence. He tipped Mellor to reach the cabinet. In an interview, in February 1999 Archer said, "I hope we don't return to extremes. I'm what you might call centre-right but I've always disliked the right wing as much as I've disliked the left wing."
In 1974, Archer was a casualty of a fraudulent investment scheme involving a Canadian company called Aquablast. The debacle lost him his first fortune and left him almost £500,000 in debt. Warned by Daily Mirror reporter Revel Barker – whom he misidentified as a fellow Oxford student – that as a bankrupt he could not be an MP, he announced that he would not be standing in the October 1974 general election "because of financial difficulties".