Decorated initial C

hristopher Stray read Classics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and wrote his PhD thesis later, after a spell of teaching, at University College, Swansea. This was published as Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities and Society in England, 1830-1960 by the Oxford University Press, and won a Runciman Prize in 1999. It was to be the first of many books, editions and articles. Stray has also worked on the history of universities, on examination systems, and on institutional slang.

Stray has held numerous prestigious fellowships and honorary positions, including: Honorary Research Fellowship,Dept of History and Classics, Swansea University (from 1989); Visiting Fellowship, Wolfson College Cambridge (1996–98); John D. and Rose H. Jackson Fellowship, Beinecke Library, Yale University (2005); Senior Research Fellowship, Institute of Classical Studies, University of London (2010–18); Member of the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2012); Visiting Fellow Commonership, Trinity College Cambridge (Michaelmas Term 2024).

As well as writing and editing books, a small selection of which is shown on this page, he has been active in many collaborative research projects, and in the organisation of conferences and colloquia, including: Convener of the Textbook Colloquium (1988–99); co-organiser (with Stephen Harrison and Chris Kraus) of conference on “Classical Commentaries” (Oxford, 2012); member of advisory board, “Classics and Class in Britain,” King's College London, 2013–16 (from 2016 “People’s History of Classics”); co-organiser (with Stephen Harrison) of conference on “Liddell & Scott” (Oxford, 2013).

A colloquium in his honour was held in Oxford in October 2018, organised by Stephen Harrison.

In 2021 De Gruyter published the Festschrift, Classical Scholarship and Its History from the Renaissance to the Present. Essays in Honour of Christopher Stray, edited by Stephen Harrison and Christopher Pelling. In 2024 Christopher was awarded the Kenyon Medal by the British Academy "for almost single-handedly creating the field of the institutional history of Classics."

Christopher is married to anthropologist Margaret Kenna, of Swansea University; they have a son.



Created 28 July 2025