Peter Calvocoressi

Peter John Ambrose Calvocoressi (17 November 1912 – 5 February 2010) was a British lawyer, Liberal politician, historian, and publisher. He served as an intelligence officer at Bletchley Park during World War II. Early years Calvocoressi was born in Karachi, British India (now in Pakistan), to a family of Greek origins from the island of Chios. His mother, Irene (née Ralli), was descended from one of the founders of Ralli Brothers, who were prominent Greek families of Chios who came to London at the time of the Greek Diaspora. When he was three months old, the family moved to Liverpool, England. Calvocoressi's father Pandia had spent the first seven years of his life in Manchester and the next ten at San Stefano (now Yeşilköy, then in the outskirts of Istanbul). He attended the Sorbonne from the age of 17 for three years and then joined the family firm in New York. Pandia Calvocoressi and Irene Ralli married in London in 1910. Shortly afterwards Pandia was posted to India where Calvocoressi was born. His mother and maternal grandmother were both born in India but spent most of their lives in England. In 1926 he was elected a scholar of Eton in second place, a position which he retained for the greater part of the next five years. Switching from the standard Classical curriculum to History, he was taught by, among others, the young Robert Birley. At Balliol College, Oxford, in 1931–1934, he was tutored in Modern History mainly by B. H. Sumner and V. H. Galbraith, obtaining a First.