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David L. Smith (born 3 December 1963 in London) is a noted historian at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He specializes in Early Modern British history, particularly political, constitutional, legal and religious history within the Stuart period. [1] He is the author or co-author of eight books, and the editor or co-editor of seven others, and he has also published more than seventy essays and articles (see list of chief publications below). [2]
Smith 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, and graduated in 1985. He then gained his PGCE with Distinction in 1986, and was awarded the Charles Fox Prize for the best performance in the Cambridge PGCE that year. He went on to take 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 served as a Director of Studies in History since 1992 and a Graduate Tutor since 2004. He has also held several other offices within the College, including Admissions Tutor (1992-2003), Praelector (1994-2006), and Secretary to the College Council and Governing Body (2018–20).
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. [3] He also teaches regular weekend, day-school and summer school courses for Cambridge's Institute of Continuing Education. [4] He has taught on the Institute's annual History Summer Programme every year since 1993, and he was the Programme Director for fourteen years (2005-19). He was a member of the Institute's Management Board from 2005 to 2008, and he was an Affiliated Lecturer of the Institute from 2012 to 2019.
He was an Associate Editor and Research Associate for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004), to which he also contributed twenty-three articles. From 1993 to 2003 he was co-editor of the Cambridge University Press A-level History series Cambridge Perspectives in History, in which thirty books were published. More recently, he was co-editor of the Cambridge University Press series aimed at the AQA specifications for A-level History, in which eighteen books were published in 2015-16. He was an Associate Editor of the Journal of British Studies from 2014 to 2017.
He was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago in 1991, and at Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea, in 2004. He served as an External Examiner for the University of Leicester (2007–10), and for the University of Hull (2012–17). 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 taught in schools as well as universities. During his gap year in 1982, he spent two terms teaching at Framlingham College Prep School, and was Acting Head of History for the second term. In 1986, he taught at Hinchingbrooke School, Huntingdon, for his Cambridge PGCE teaching practice term. He was an A-level History Examiner for the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board from 1986 to 1990, and since 1988 he has given lectures in over a hundred schools and sixth-form colleges.
He served as a Governor of Eastbourne College (1993-2015) and also as a Trustee of Oakham School (2000–12). He was a member of the Cambridgeshire Records Society Committee from 1998 to 2009. He served on the Management Committee of the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon from 2009 to 2015. He was a Trustee of the Cromwell Association from 2012 to 2015, and in 2024 he was elected a Vice-President of the Association.
Four on-line lecture courses for Massolit (https://massolit.io/) on:
Three on-line lecture podcasts for The World Turned Upside Down (https://www.worldturnedupsidedown.co.uk/) on Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English statesman, politician, and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the British Isles. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially as a senior commander in the Parliamentarian army and latterly as a politician. A leading advocate of the execution of Charles I in January 1649, which led to the establishment of The Protectorate, he ruled as Lord Protector from December 1653 until his death in September 1658. Cromwell remains a controversial figure due to his use of the army to acquire political power, and the brutality of his 1649 campaign in Ireland.
John Tillotson was the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury from 1691 to 1694.
John Edward Christopher Hill was an English Marxist historian and academic, specialising in 17th-century English history. From 1965 to 1978 he was Master of Balliol College, Oxford.
Sir Charles Harding Firth was a British historian. He was one of the founders of the Historical Association in 1906. Esmond de Beer wrote that Firth "knew the men and women of the seventeenth century much as a man knows his friends and acquaintances, not only as characters but also in the whole moral and intellectual world in which they lived."
Samuel Rawson Gardiner was an English historian, who specialized in 17th-century English history as a prominent foundational historian of the Puritan revolution and the English Civil War.
John Hampden was an English landowner and politician whose opposition to 'arbitrary' taxes imposed by Charles I made him a national figure. Allied with Parliamentarian leader John Pym, and cousin to Oliver Cromwell, he was among the Five Members whose attempted arrest in January 1642 helped to spark the First English Civil War. All 5 are commemorated at the State Opening of Parliament each year.
Early modern Britain is the history of the island of Great Britain roughly corresponding to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Major historical events in early modern British history include numerous wars, especially with France, along with the English Renaissance, the English Reformation and Scottish Reformation, the English Civil War, the Restoration of Charles II, the Glorious Revolution, the Treaty of Union, the Scottish Enlightenment and the formation and the collapse of the First British Empire.
Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton was a German-born British political and constitutional historian, specialising in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge, and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988.
Lawrence Stone was an English historian of early modern Britain, after a start to his career as an art historian of English medieval art. He is noted for his work on the English Civil War and the history of marriage, families and the aristocracy.
Austin Lane Poole, FBA was a British mediaevalist.
Godfrey Davies was an English historian of the 17th century and member of the research staff of the Huntington Library. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review summarized his contributions by noting: "Through his published works he came to be recognized as a leading authority in seventeenth-century English history, and through his innumerable services to British and American students who have worked at the Huntington Library during the past quarter of a century he made a leading contribution not only to his own but also to many fields of historical scholarship."
John Stephen Morrill is a British historian and academic who specialises in the political, religious, social, and cultural history of early-modern Britain from 1500 to 1750, especially the English Civil War. He is best known for his scholarship on early modern politics and his unique county studies approach which he developed at Cambridge. Morrill was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and became a fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1975.
William Chappell was an English scholar and clergyman who served as the 7th Provost of Trinity College Dublin from 1634 to 1640. He became Church of Ireland bishop of Cork and Ross.
New College, Durham, or Durham College, was a university institution set up by Oliver Cromwell, to provide an alternative to the older University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. It also had the aim of bringing university education to Northern England.
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and seminaries run by English Dissenters, that is, Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England. They formed a significant part of education in England from the mid-seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.
The Stuart period of British history lasted from 1603 to 1714 during the dynasty of the House of Stuart. The period ended with the death of Queen Anne and the accession of King George I from the German House of Hanover.
John Hall (1627–1656), also known as John Hall of Durham, was an English poet, essayist and pamphleteer of the Commonwealth period. After a short period of adulation at university, he became a writer in the Parliamentary cause and Hartlib Circle member.
Mark Kishlansky was an American historian of seventeenth-century British politics. He was the Frank Baird, Jr. Professor of History at Harvard University.
Georg Ritschel was a Bohemian Protestant minister and educator. He associated with the Hartlib Circle, and was considered by Richard Popkin to belong to his "Third Force".
Richard Bruce Wernham, was an English historian of Elizabethan England. After his death The Times called him "the leading historian of English foreign policy in the 16th century".
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