Sir David Nicholas Cannadine

Sir David Nicholas Cannadine began his academic career in 1977. From 1988 he spent ten years in New York as professor of history at Columbia University before returning to the UK to take up the post of Director of the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. He was appointed Whitney J Oates Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University in 2008. His publications include The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1990), Ornamentalism: how the British saw their Empire (2001) and biographies of G.M.Trevelyan (1992) and Andrew W. Mellon (2006). Among many wider responsibilities, he is Chairman of the National Portrait Gallery, Chairman of the Blue Plaques Panel, Chairman of the Westminster Abbey Committee and member of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee. He has been one of the judges of the Wolfson History Prizes since 2001. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and was knighted in the 2009 New Year Honours for services to scholarship.