Davies, R(obert) R(ees) 1938–2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born August 6, 1938, in Llandderfel, Merionethshire, Wales; died of cancer May 16, 2005, in Oxford, England. Historian, educator, and author. A retired Chichele professor of medieval history at Oxford University, Davies was a noted scholar in his field, especially in the history of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. After completing his undergraduate work at University College London in 1959, he went on to earn a D.Phil. at Oxford in 1965. Davies lectured at University College, London from 1963 until 1976, before becoming a professor of history at University College, of Wales in Aberystwyth. While there, he published the first of many acclaimed history books, 1978's Lordship and Society in the March of Wales, 1282–1400. This was followed by Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales, 1063–1415 (1987; published in 1991 as The Age of Conquest, which earned him the Wolfson Literary Award for History. That same year, he also was made a fellow of the British Academy. Davies served out the remainder of his academic career at Aberystwyth, where he was also a vice principal from 1988 to 1991 and, from 1993 to 1995, British Academy Research Professor in Humanities. Named a commander of the British Empire in 1995, he was also a member of the Royal Historical Society, which he headed as president from 1992 to 1996. After retiring from Oxford, Davies chaired the Ancient Monuments Board for Wales until his death from cancer. Knighted in 2005, his later publications include The Age of Conquest: Wales, 1063–1415 (1992) and The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles, 1093–1343 (2000), the latter which won the British Academy Book Prize. His final book, a work about Owain Glyn Dwr, was published in Welsh in 2002. Among the other honors accrued by Davies for his scholarship were the 1994 Medlicott Medal from the Historical Association and a second Wolfson Literary Award, which he earned in 1992 for his work on medieval Welsh history.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Independent (London, England), May 23, 2005, p. 34.

Times (London, England), June 9, 2005, p. 69.