John Cornwell (writer)

John Cornwell (born 1940) is a British journalist, author, and academic. Since 1990 he has directed the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he is also, since 2009, Founder and Director of the Rustat Conferences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters (University of Leicester) in 2011. He was nominated for the PEN/Ackerley Prize for best UK memoir 2007 (Seminary Boy) and shortlisted Specialist Journalist of the Year (science, medicine in Sunday Times Magazine), British Press Awards 2006. He won the Science and Medical Network Book of the Year Award for Hitler’s Scientists, 2005; and received the Independent Television Authority-Tablet Award for contributions to religious journalism (1994). In 1982 he won the Gold Dagger Award Non-Fiction (1982) for Earth to Earth. He is best known for his investigative journalism; memoir; and his work in public understanding of science. In addition to his books on the relationship between science, ethics and the humanities, he has written widely on the Catholic Church and the modern papacy.

John Cornwell was born in East Ham, London, the son of Sidney Arthur Cornwell and Kathleen Egan Cornwell.

Raised as a Roman Catholic, Cornwell entered the junior seminary, Cotton College, in 1953 intending to become a priest. He later wrote a memoir of his five years at Cotton. He continued to the senior seminary, Oscott College, Sutton Coldfield, in 1958.

Cornwell studied English Language and Literature at St Benet's Hall, Oxford and was tutored by Jonathan Wordsworth at Exeter College. He graduated in 1964, and went on to Christ's College, Cambridge as a graduate student.

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