British author Colin Dexter, creator of Inspector Morse, dies aged 86

British author Colin Dexter, pictured in 2000 after receiving an Order of the British Empire, has died aged 86. Picture: John Stillwell/PA, File via AP

WRITER Colin Dexter, who created music-loving Oxford detective Inspector Morse, has died aged 86.

Publisher Pan Macmillan says Dexter passed away “peacefully” at his home in Oxford on Tuesday.

Born in 1930 in Stamford, central England, Dexter studied classics at Cambridge University and became a teacher and author of textbooks before turning to fiction.

British author Colin Dexter, pictured in the study of his Oxford home in 2000, has died aged 86. Picture: SuppliedSource:News Corp Australia

Last Bus to Woodstock, published in 1975, introduced Morse, a curmudgeonly detective with a love of classical music and crosswords — and for a long time, no first name, at least not one revealed to readers.

The character was played by John Thaw in a successful TV series that ran from 1987 to 2000.

The Sun reports the crime writer started his career as a teacher, before hearing problems forced him to quit.

Actor John Thaw played Inspector Morse in the successful TV series. Picture: SuppliedSource:News Limited

In an interview in 2012, he told the Daily Mail it was during a rainy family holiday in North Wales that he started writing detective stories.

With no typewriter, Dexter said wrote out the first passages of his debut novel Last Bus To Woodstock in longhand on sheets of writing paper.

“The children were moaning. I was sitting at the kitchen table with nothing else to do, and I wrote the first few paragraphs of a potential detective novel,” he said.

The hard-drinking and unlucky-in-love detective went on to become one of the greatest British TV characters of all time.

Colin Dexter's appearances in Inspector Morse

Dexter attended Stamford School, a boys’ public school, where he played cricket, tennis, hockey and rugby.

He went on to read Classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge, graduating in 1953, before working as a teacher at schools in Leicester, Loughborough and Corby and marrying wife Dorothy, with whom he had one son and one daughter.

In 1966, the onset of deafness forced Dexter to give up his teaching career and he became an exams secretary at the University of Oxford, a job he held until his retirement in 1988.

A very sad day for all of us at Mammoth - Rest in peace, Colin Dexter. pic.twitter.com/JDFIPi4mi2

— Mammoth Screen (@mammothscreen) March 21, 2017

Author Colin Dexter, speaking about Inspector Morse in 1993. He has died, aged 86. pic.twitter.com/phFmaU7dL4

— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) March 21, 2017

"The sharpest mind, the biggest heart", such a sad day. RIP Colin Dexter. https://t.co/8RFHXC6YhS pic.twitter.com/5ndYVOilZT

— Keeley Rodgers (@Keeley_Rodgers) March 21, 2017

— With The Sun.