Sir Christopher Alan Bayly, FBA, FRSL (born in Tunbridge Wells, England, in 1945) is a British historian specializing in Indian, British Imperial, and Global History. Having obtained his BA, MA, and DPhil (1970) degrees from the University of Oxford, the latter under the supervision of John Andrew Gallagher, he is currently the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge and a trustee of the British Museum. In 1990 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and in 2004 was awarded the prestigious Wolfson History Prize for his distinguished contributions to the discipline. He was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2007 for his services to History. Upon being informed of the award he stated: "I regard this not only as a great personal honour but, as an historian of India, as recognition of the growing importance of the history of the non-western world."
In 2007, he succeeded Professor Sir John Baker as President of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. More recently, Bayly also became the Director of Cambridge's Centre of South Asian Studies. He is co-editor of The New Cambridge History of India and sits on the editorial board of various academic journals.