William Croft Dickinson, CBE (28 August 1897 - May 1963) was an English historian, a leading expert in the history of early modern Scotland and an author of both children's fiction and adult ghost stories.

Alistair W. J. Kerr was born in Scotland. His father was an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps, who later became an academic. Alistair studied History and Law at the University of Edinburgh and later became a civil servant. He is the author of Betrayal: The Murder of Robert Nairac GC (Cambridge Academic, 2015).