Ian Senior Biography
Ian Senior read biochemistry at Cambridge University followed by a master’s degree in Genetics at Queen Mary University, London. Several years later, he studied art history at Birkbeck College London, specialising in Early Renaissance art and English Baroque architecture, and graduated with first class honours. He has worked for many years at Dulwich College in southeast London where he has taught Biology, Chemistry, History, and History of Art as well as being a boarding housemaster and Common Room President, a job which he describes as being a cross between a trade-union leader and a social secretary. He was an Open University assistant lecturer in Renaissance Art History for 20 years and is a principal examiner in the history of art for the Cambridge University Examination Board. His tastes in art are eclectic, encompassing Roman Antiquity, English architecture, French rococo painting and German Expressionism, but his first love for the art of 15th century Florence still endures. He has always been interested in military history and his book Home before the Leaves Fall: a New History of the German Invasion of 1914,was published by Osprey Press in 2012. As a result of its publication, he took part as an expert in a television documentary presented by Michael Portillo entitled, The Railways of the Great War, which was screened on BBC2 in August 2014. In his younger days, he was an enthusiastic club cricketer and he played table tennis to a high level, being awarded a half-blue in the sport when he was at Cambridge. He is an ardent Germanophile with an interest in 20th century German literature and he and his wife regularly visit north Germany, especially Hamburg where her mother and maternal grandparents lived. He has three grown-up sons and lives in south London.
