2021

Our President in 2021/2 was:

Professor Murray Pittock

He was also President in 2019/20 and expected to propose the Toast to Sir Walter at our Annual Dinner on 7th May 2020 but due to the impact of COVID-19 that event was cancelled.  He was re-elected as President and spoke at our 112th Annual Dinner on 5th May 2022. 

Murray Pittock MAE FRSE is Bradley Professor and has been in senior leadership roles at the University of Glasgow since 2008: currently he is Pro Vice-Principal. He also serves as Chair of the Governance Board of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, is co-Chair of the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance, Chair of Trustees of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures, a Trustee of the National Trust for Scotland and a board member of NISE.eu which brings together research on national identity from 50 research institutes across Europe. He regularly gives advice to government and evidence to select committees and was a member of the UK-Canada intergovernmental colloquium in 2021. In 2022 he was Scotland’s national Knowledge Exchange Champion and in 2023 a senior member of the team from the Centre for Robert Burns Studies who won the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for the University of Glasgow. He has held visiting appointments at Yale, New York University, Notre Dame, Trinity College, Dublin, Charles University, Prague, South Carolina and other institutions, and has held some 20 grants as Principal Investigator; currently he is co-Investigator of the £5.6M Museums in the Metaverse project. He is general editor of the Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Allan Ramsay (6 volumes) and his recent books include Scotland: the Global History (2022, Spectator History Book of the Year choice, CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Year), Enlightenment in a Smart City (2018, one Book of the Year award) and Culloden (2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, History Today Book of the Year Choice, House of Commons reading list, Warfare History Network Choice).