Researching John Christie

Two of Christie's victims were Beryl Evans and her baby daughter Geraldine, who, along with Beryl's husband, Timothy Evans, were tenants at 10 Rillington Place during 1948–49. This case sparked huge controversy after Evans was charged with both murders, found guilty of the murder of his daughter, and hanged in 1950. Christie was a major prosecution witness; when his own crimes were discovered three years later, serious doubts were raised about the integrity of Evans's conviction. Christie himself subsequently admitted killing Beryl, but not Geraldine; it is now generally accepted that Christie murdered both Beryl and Geraldine and that police mishandling of the original inquiry allowed Christie to escape detection and enabled him to murder four more women. The High Court quashed Evans's conviction in 2004, accepting that Evans did not murder either his wife or his child.

Born to a wealthy landed family in Eggesford, Devon, Christie was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, later spending seven years at Eton as a master. His grandfather was William Langham Christie. He served in the trenches in the First World War with the King's Royal Rifle Corps, despite partial blindness, was awarded the Military Cross, and reached the rank of Captain. Having been given the Glyndebourne Estate for his own use he began to develop local enterprises there from 1920 onwards: in 1923, he acquired the famous organbuilding company of William Hill & Son & Norman & Beard Ltd., which had come into being around 1916 with the progressive merging of its two constituent firms. The firm remained in Christie ownership until its demise in the 1990s.

In 1931 he married the Canadian soprano Audrey Mildmay, and together they planned to build an opera theatre as an annex to the main house. This was completed in 1934 and the first season, which featured Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte, conducted by Fritz Busch, was an immediate success.

In succeeding years Christie continued to finance the Glyndebourne Festival Opera himself but after World War II, during which the opera season was suspended, the costs became harder to bear. Eventually however he succeeded in getting commercial sponsorship, placing the Festival on a sound footing and enabling him to aspire to the highest artistic standards.

In 1954 John Christie was made a Companion of Honour for his achievement at Glyndebourne.

He died at Glyndebourne in 1962. After Christie's death, the festival was taken over by his son, Sir George Christie, and subsequently by his grandson Gus Christie. Like his father, Sir George was also made a Companion of Honour for his work at Glyndebourne. John's founding of Glyndebourne is the subject of the 2015 biographical play The Moderate Soprano by David Hare.

Christie married Lucie Catherine, only daughter of Thomas Philip Le Fanu; they had two daughters. The elder was Catherine (born 1935); the younger, Jane (born 1936) married Henry Galton Darwin.

Author Roald Dahl attended Repton from 1929, where, according to Boy: Tales of Childhood, a friend named Michael was viciously caned by headmaster Geoffrey Fisher, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, according to Dahl's biographer Jeremy Treglown, the caning took place in May 1933, a year after Fisher had left Repton and Christie, in fact, was the headmaster concerned.

Hugh Lloyd-Jones, a British classical scholar who became Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, recounted that, during his years as a student at Westminster School, he had been interested in Modern History before being converted to Classics by Christie.

As a director/cameraman his art-related TV programmes include Another Way of Telling, a BBC series on photography made in collaboration with John Berger and Jean Mohr; Salvage of Soho Photographer, a C4 documentary on John Deakin and First Hand, a series of seven films based on literary manuscripts from the British Library. As a lighting cameraman he filmed Ian Breakwell's Continuous Diary (C4), 40 Years of Modern Art (Tate), Ian Breakwell's Public Face/Private Eye (C4), David Mach - From Hill to Castle (BBC2), "David Nash - At the Edge of the Forest (BBC Wales) and The Other Side Ian Breakwell's installation produced by Anna Ridley and shown at the De La Warr Pavilion and Tate Britain.

John Christie was one of the four founder members of the award-winning East Anglian publisher Full Circle Editions and also of the FlipSide literary and music festival held at the Aldeburgh Music complex, Snape Maltings, every autumn.