Andrew Seaton
New StatesmanAndrew Seaton is a historian and writer, currently based at the University of Manchester. He writes about politics, welfare, medicine, and the environment. His work connects the stories of ordinary people with larger patterns of change. Andrew’s first book was Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution, published in 2023. He has featured in the Financial Times, Guardian, and Literary Review and he has appeared on radio and television, including BBC Radio 4’s ’Start the Week’. Andrew is from Exeter and experienced several years of homelessness as a teenager. He is committed to broadening the boundaries of higher education to include those from unrepresented backgrounds and bringing academic research to a wider public.
His shortlisted pieces were:
Andrew’s piece was data heavy, rich with facts and explanation about hidden homelessness, but what really stood out to us was the way in which Andrew talked about his own experience of being part of that story, of being homeless as a young person, and all the effects which that had on him and his education – and how he ultimately overcame them.
– Sarah O’Connor, Judge, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2026
