A murder investigation has been launched after historian Adrian Greenwood was found stabbed to death following a “vicious and sustained attack”, police revealed.
Officers were called to Iffley Road in Oxford on Thursday after the 42-year-old was found by his cleaner in the hallway of his four-storey house. He was pronounced dead at the scene: a postmortem examination gave the cause of death as multiple stab wounds.
Formal identification has yet to take place, but detectives revealed that they were satisfied that the man was Greenwood, who was also a biographer, author and art dealer. A 26-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is in police custody.
“We believe that an altercation has taken place in the hallway of this house,” said the head of the Thames Valley police major crime unit, Detective Superintendent Chris Ward. “A postmortem has confirmed that Mr Greenwood died following a vicious and sustained attack.”
A police spokesman said they had yet to recover the murder weapon. “The investigation team would like to hear from anyone who has information about Mr Greenwood’s associates, or anyone who has had a personal or business engagement with him in the last few weeks,” he added.
Greenwood was usually smartly dressed, often wearing a tweed jacket. He was last seen at Sainsbury’s supermarket in Kidlington, at about 6pm on Tuesday 5 April. “If you saw him after this time, we would also like to hear from you,” added Ward.
Greenwood was educated at Tonbridge School in Kent, where he was taught by Sir Anthony Seldon, the historian and biographer of John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, according to his personal website adriangreenwoodbooks.co.uk.
A graduate of politics, philosophy and economics from Christ Church, Oxford, Greenwood followed in Seldon’s footsteps by becoming a historian in his own right. He wrote several biographies and also traded in rare and antiquarian books, including texts that he provided for the British Library and the Getty Museum, according to his website.
The BBC also reported that Greenwood was responsible for the sale of a piece by the graffiti artist Banksy, worth £60,000, in April 2011.
Greenwood’s first book, Victoria’s Scottish Lion, a biography of the British army officer Sir John Campbell, was nominated for the Templar Medal Book Prize, while his most recent text, Through Spain With Wellington, was published last month.
