David L. Smith

David L. Smith, born in London on 3 December 1963, 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 his BA with First Class honours in 1985, 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] He was a member of the Institute's Management Board from 2005 to 2008, and he has been Programme Director of the Institute's annual History Summer School since 2005. He has chaired the Institute’s Programme Review Panel since 2011, 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.