Brian Rees was born in Sydney, Australia, but educated at the Bede Grammar School, Sunderland. He was a Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, and as a History Master at Eton College, he collaborated with the satirist, the late John Wells, on a musical version of Aristophanes’ Birds. He was Headmaster of three public schools: Merchant Taylors’, Charterhouse, and Rugby, and is the biographer of Sir Edward German and editor of the papers of Sir Robert Birley.