Christopher Bayly

{{Infobox person

|name = Christopher Bayly

|image =

|caption = Historian

| birth_date = {{birth date|1945|5|18|df=y}}

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2015|4|18|1945|5|18|df=y}}

| death_place = Hyde Park, Chicago

| education = {{unbulleted list |Balliol College, Oxford| St Antony's College, Oxford }}

| occupation = Historian, Author

}}

{{for|the King County prosecuting attorney and Washington State political and business figure|Chris Bayley}}

Sir Christopher Alan Bayly, FBA, FRSL (18 May 1945 – 18 April 2015) was a British historian specialising in British Imperial, Indian and global history.{{cite web|url=http://scroll.in/article/721951/Christopher-Alan-Bayly,-pre-eminent-Western-historian-of-India,-dies|title=Scroll.in – News. Politics. Culture.|work=scroll.in|date=20 April 2015 }}{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/apr/23/sir-christopher-bayly|title=Sir Christopher Bayly obituary|first=Richard|last=Drayton|date=23 April 2015|newspaper=The Guardian}} From 1992 to 2013, he was Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge.

Biography

Bayly was from Tunbridge Wells, England, where he attended The Skinners School. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. He then remained at the University of Oxford and undertook post-graduate study at St Antony's College, Oxford.{{cite web|title=Professor Sir Christopher Bayly|url=http://www.history.qmul.ac.uk/staff/profile/10453-professor-sir-christopher-bayly|website=Staff|publisher=Queen Mary, University of London|access-date=24 April 2015}} He completed his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1970 with a thesis titled The development of political organisation in the Allahabad locality, 1880–1925{{cite web|title=The development of political organisation in the Allahabad locality, 1880–1925|url=http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:oxfaleph015015872|website=Search Oxford Libraries Online|publisher=Bodleian Libraries|access-date=20 August 2015}} under John Andrew Gallagher.

Bayly was the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge from 1992 to 2013. He was also a trustee of the British Museum. In 2007, he succeeded Sir John Baker as President of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Bayly also became the Director of Cambridge's Centre of South Asian Studies. He was co-editor of The New Cambridge History of India and sat on the editorial board of various academic journals.{{cite book |last1=Alavi |first1=Seema |title=Bayly, Sir Christopher Allan (Chris) (1945–2015) |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-110372 |access-date=31 March 2020 |date=10 January 2019|doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.110372 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }} He also served on the inaugural Social Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2009.

In 1990, Bayly was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA). In 2004 he was awarded the Wolfson History Oeuvre Prize for his many contributions to the discipline. In the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours, it was announced that he had been appointed a Knight Bachelor 'for services to History'.{{London Gazette |issue=58358 |date=16 June 2007 |page=1 |supp=y }} Upon being informed of the knighthood, 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."{{cite news|last1=Wojtas|first1=Olga|title=Fright for knight as good news lost in post|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/209435.article|access-date=24 April 2015|work=Times Higher Education|date=22 June 2007}}

Bayly was married to Susan Bayly, a professor of historical anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Bayly died in Hyde Park, Chicago, on 18 April 2015, a month before his 70th birthday. He was in his second and last year as the Vivekananda Visiting Professor when he died.{{cite web|title=Professor Sir Christopher Bayly historian obituary|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11558389/Professor-Sir-Christopher-Bayly-historian-obituary.html|website=telegraph.co.uk|date=23 April 2015 |publisher=The Telegraph|access-date=23 April 2015}} In 2016, Bayly became the first person to be posthumously awarded the Toynbee Prize for global history.{{cite journal |title=Grants and Awards |date=August 2016 |issue=7 |journal=The Seeley: History Faculty Newsletter |publisher=History Faculty, University of Cambridge}} After Bayly's death, the Royal Asiatic Society established in his honour the annual Bayly Prize for a distinguished doctoral thesis in an Asian subject.{{Cite web|url=https://royalasiaticsociety.org/the-bayly-prize-applications-and-nominations/|title=The Bayly Prize Applications and Nominations}}

Selected bibliography

The Local Roots of Indian Politics: Allahabad, 1880–1920 (1975)
Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (1983)
Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (1988)
Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830. London and New York: Longman (1989)
Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (1996)
Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (1997)
The Birth of the Modern World: 1780–1914 (2004)
{{cite book|last1=Bayly|first1=Christopher |last2=Harper|first2=Timothy |title=Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945|url=https://archive.org/details/forgottenarmiesf00bayl|url-access=registration|year=2005|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-01748-1}}
{{cite book|last1=Bayly|first1=Christopher|last2=Harper|first2=Timothy|title=Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia|url=https://archive.org/details/forgottenwarsfre00bayl|url-access=registration|year=2007|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-02153-2}}
{{cite book|last=Bayly|first=Christopher Alan|title=Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0GLAWY6L8fIC|year=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-50518-5}}
Remaking the Modern World, 1900-2015: Global Connections and Comparisons (2018)