David Smith (historian)

David L. Smith (born 3 December 1963 in London) is a noted historian of the Early Modern period of British history, particularly political, constitutional, legal and religious history in the Stuart period.^[1] He is the author or co-author of eight books, and the editor or co-editor of five others (see list of chief publications below). He was educated at Eastbourne College (1972–81) and then went up to Selwyn College, Cambridge, as a Scholar in October 1982. At Selwyn he took Firsts in both Parts of the Historical Tripos (with Distinction in Part I), graduating in 1985. He went on to take his PGCE with Distinction in 1986, his MA in 1989, and his PhD in 1990. In 1991 he won the Royal Historical Society's Alexander Prize, and Cambridge University's Thirlwall Prize for historical research.

He has been a Fellow of Selwyn College since 1988. He has also served as a Director of Studies in History since 1992, and as a Graduate Tutor since 2004. For nearly twelve years (1992–2003) he was Admissions Tutor at Selwyn, a period during which the College's academic performance improved markedly. From 1994 until 2006 he was also the College's Praelector.

He has been an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of History at Cambridge since 1995, and he served as Convenor of the Directors of Studies in History from 2006 to 2010.^[2] He also teaches regular weekend, day-school and summer school courses for Cambridge's Institute of Continuing Education,^[3] and he has been Programme Director of the Institute's annual History Summer School since 2005. He was a member of the Institute's Management Board from 2005 to 2008, and he became an Affiliated Lecturer of the Institute in 2012.

He was an Associate Editor and Research Associate for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004), to which he also contributed 23 articles. From 1993 to 2003 he was co-editor of the Cambridge University Press A-level History series Cambridge Perspectives in History, in which 30 books were published. In 2014, he was appointed co-editor of the Cambridge University Press series targeted at the new GCE A-level History specifications for AQA. In the same year, he also became an Associate Editor of the Journal of British Studies.

He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago (1991), and at Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea (2004). He has served as an External Examiner for the University of Leicester (2007–10), and for the University of Hull (since 2012). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1992, and he has been President of the Cambridge History Forum since 1997.

He has been a Governor of Eastbourne College since 1993, and he was also a Trustee of Oakham School from 2000 to 2012. He was a member of the Cambridgeshire Records Society Committee from 1998 to 2009. He has served on the Management Committee of the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon since 2009 and he was a Trustee of the Cromwell Association from 2012 to 2015.

Chief publications

• Oliver Cromwell: Politics and Religion in the English Revolution, 1640–1658 (Cambridge University Press, 1991)
• Louis XIV (Cambridge University Press, 1992)
• Constitutional Royalism and the Search for Settlement, c. 1640–1649 (Cambridge University Press, 1994)
• (co-edited with Richard Strier and David Bevington) The Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre and Politics in London, 1576–1649 (Cambridge University Press, 1995)
• A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603–1707: The Double Crown (Blackwell, 1998)
• The Stuart Parliaments, 1603–1689 (Edward Arnold, 1999)
• (with Graham E. Seel) The Early Stuart Kings, 1603–1642 (Routledge, 2001)
• (with Graham E. Seel) Crown and Parliaments, 1558–1689 (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
• (edited) Cromwell and the Interregnum (Blackwell, 2003)
• Twenty-three articles in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004)
• (co-edited with Jason McElligott) Royalists and Royalism during the English Civil Wars (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• (with Patrick Little) Parliaments and Politics during the Cromwellian Protectorate (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• (co-edited with Jason McElligott) Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum (Manchester University Press, 2010)
• (co-edited with Michael J. Braddick) The Experience of Revolution in Stuart Britain and Ireland: Essays for John Morrill (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

References