Andrew Wareham

Andrew Wareham is an English author of historical and naval fiction whose unusually prolific catalogue ranges across British, European and imperial history. Born in Hampshire, he studied social sciences at the University of Kent, where economic and social history became a lasting interest. He later taught economics and spent about ten years in Papua New Guinea, including work as a trainer and operational police officer with the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. After returning to Britain, he worked in the security industry and began writing seriously while employed as a night watchman. Following many publishing rejections, he independently published The Privateersman in 2013 and subsequently established a full-time career producing several historical novels each year.

Wareham has written numerous interconnected series covering naval warfare, colonial expansion, social mobility and the experiences of soldiers and families during periods of political change. The Poor Man at the Gate sequence follows a privateer and his descendants from the eighteenth century into the Victorian period, while Duty and Destiny, Call of the Sea and ’Twas on the China Station explore naval careers and Britain’s changing maritime power. His other series address the English Civil War, the First and Second World Wars, India, China, Africa, the Caribbean and the settlement of colonial territories. His fiction is generally fast-moving and often satirical, combining military and commercial adventure with a critical view of class privilege, imperial institutions and the social inequalities of the periods he depicts.