Together with the Whitbread Novel Award, the Whitbread Biography Award was one of the original categories of the Whitbread Book Awards, consistently included during the years 1971 to 2005.

Past Winners

• 1971 - Michael Meyer Henrik Ibsen
• 1972 - James Pope-Hennessey Trollope
• 1973 - John Wilson CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
• 1974 - Andrew Boyle Poor Dear Brendan
• 1975 - Helen Corke In Our Infancy
• 1976 - Winifred Gerin Elizabeth Gaskell
• 1977 - Nigel Nicolson Mary Curzon
• 1978 - Jon Grigg Lloyd George: The People's Champion
• 1979 - Penelope Mortimer About Time
• 1980 - David Newsome On the Edge of Paradise: A C Benson the Diarist
• 1981 - Nigel Hamilton Monty: the Making of a General
• 1982 - Edward Crankshaw Bismarck
• 1983 - Victoria Glendinning Vita
• 1983 - Kenneth Rose King George V
• 1984 - Peter Ackroyd T. S. Eliot
• 1985 - Ben Pimlott Hugh Dalton
• 1986 - Richard Mabey Gilbert White
• 1987 - Christopher Nolan Under the Eye of the Clock
• 1988 - A N Wilson Tolstoy
• 1989 - Richard Holmes Coleridge: Earlyl Visions
• 1990 - Ann Thwaite A A Milne: His Life
• 1991 - John Richardson A Life of Picasso
• 1992 - Victorian Glendinning Trollope
• 1993 - Andrew Motion Philip Larkin
• 1994 - Brenda Maddox The Married Man
• 1995 - Roy Jenkins Gladstone
• 1996 - Diarmaid MacCulloch Thomas Cranmer: A Life
• 1997 - Graham Robb Victor Hugo
• 1998 - Amanda Foreman Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
• 1999 - David Cairns Berlioz, vol. II
• 2000 - Lorna Sage Bad Blood
• 2001 - Diana Souhami Selkirk's Island
• 2002 - Claire Tomalin Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
• 2003 - D. J. Taylor Orwell, The Life
• 2004 - John Guy My Heart Is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots
• 2005 - Hilary Spurling Matisse the Master