Biography

Thomas Williams is the best-selling author of Lost Realms, Viking Britain and Viking London

““Williams is an exceptionally vivid and exciting writer […] a meticulous, honest and fair-minded scholar”

Professor Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch and Pagan Britain

A historian of the early Middle Ages and a former curator at the British Museum, Thomas worked as project curator for the major international exhibition Vikings: Life and Legend (British Museum 2014). His doctoral research was undertaken at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology and he is a Fellow and Trustee of the Society of Antiquaries of London. His books Lost Realms (2022), Viking London (2019) and Viking Britain (2017) are published by William Collins.

In 2016 Thomas was awarded his PhD by UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. His thesis, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, investigated the relationship between landscape and warfare in early medieval Britain (c.450 – 1016). Prior to this he gained an MA with Distinction in Cultural Heritage Studies (UCL) with a prize-winning dissertation that explored the role of fantasy and medievalism in the modern interpretation of cultural heritage sites in Britain and Germany. He also holds a BA in History and History of Art from UCL and more recently was awarded a Certificate of Higher Education in Astronomy (UCL 2018).

Thomas has lectured in medieval and Viking Age history and Archaeology at UCL and the University of Cambridge, and has presented his work at numerous academic conferences. He has also spoken widely for public and corporate audiences, including a number of literary and historical festivals (including the Hay Festival, Chalk Valley History Festival, Wimpole History Festival, Dorchester Literary Festival and several BBC History Weekends), museums and galleries (including the British Museum and Dulwich Picture Gallery) and private donors and sponsors (including BP, Morgan Stanley, ING and Citigroup). He once talked about Vikings to the inmates of Boodle’s Private Members Club in return for a very nice lunch and a crate of gin.

The Tale of King Harald , Thomas’s first book, was published in 2014 by the British Museum Press. Illustrated by his mother, Gilli Allan, The Tale of King Harald retells the saga of the Norwegian king Harald ‘Hard-ruler’. He was the senior editor of the journal Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (2011-2012) and co-edited (with Mike Bintley) the multi-author book Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia (Boydell, 2015). Thomas is the author of a number of academic articles and reviews, and his writing has also been published in Medieval Warfare Magazine, BBC History Magazine, The Scotsman and The Idler. He has appeared on television and radio for the BBC, ITV and Channel 5 and in the pages of Private Eye.

Thomas was elected to the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2019 and appointed to the Society’s Council as a Trustee in 2023. He is also a member of the British Numismatic Society, the Society for Medieval Archaeology, the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (SSCLE) and the Viking Society for Northern Research. He has dug holes in Biała Góra, Masuria (Poland) and Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire (England). He didn’t find anything very interesting.

He lives in North London with his family.