Christopher Stray


Christopher Stray is a British historian of classical scholarship and teaching.

Biography

Stray attended Eltham College, before reading for a degree in Classics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He qualified as a teacher at the Institute of Education, University of London, and taught Classics at Latymer Upper School, and North Western Polytechnic, part-time. In 1970, he married the anthropologist Margaret Kenna and moved to Swansea, where she taught at the University of Swansea. Their son, the actor and writer, Peter Stray, was born in 1978.
His academic writings began with his PhD thesis on the history of classical education in England, which was published as Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities and Society in England, 1830-1960. The book was awarded a Runciman Prize in 1999. Stray has also worked on the history of universities, on examinations, and on institutional slang.
Despite never holding a salaried academic post, Stray has held numerous prestigious fellowships and honorary positions, including: Honorary Research Fellowship, Dept of History and Classics, Swansea University ; Visiting Fellowship, Wolfson College Cambridge ; John D and Rose H Jackson Fellowship, Beinecke Library, Yale University ; Senior Research Fellowship, Institute of Classical Studies, University of London ; Member of the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has also been active in collaborative research projects, and in organising conferences and colloquia, including:  Convener of the Textbook Colloquium ; co-organiser ; member of Advisory Board, “Classics and Class in Britain”, King’s College London, 2013–16 ; co-organiser of conference on “Liddell & Scott”. A colloquium in his honour was held in Oxford in October 2018, organised by Stephen Harrison.

Works

Books