Bamber Gascoigne Parents: Meet Derrick Ernest Gascoigne & Mary Louise Hermione O’Neill

Bamber Gascoigne was born in London. He was the elder son of Lieutenant-Colonel Derek Ernest Federick Orby Gascoigne by his marriage in 1934 to Mary Lousia Hermione O’Neill.

He was the original quizmaster of the University Challenge, which initially ran from 1962 to 1987.

Bamber was the author of Murgatreud’s Empire, a 1972 satirical novel concerning an entrepreneur who finds an island of pygmies, and trades them arms for treasure, recreating the development of European medieval weaponry and armour.

This was originally written as a script, although the play was abandoned because of the impossibility of finishing suitable performers for a cast of forty pygmies.

Bamber was the writer and presenter for the TV series of six  The Great Moghuls (1990), a study of the Mughal Empire of India. The series was based on Bamber’s 1971 book of the same name, which features photographs by his wife.