Oxford University's Faculty of History and Oriel College have celebrated 300 years since the prestigious Regius Chair in History was established. 

The position was started at the University of Oxford by King George I in 1724 and on Friday, June 7, The community and special guests came together to celebrate the milestone. 

An afternoon of academic events and a ceremony was followed by a formal dinner at Oriel College, where the chair has been based since 1866. 

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Professor Lyndal Roper was appointed Regius Chair in 2011 and is the first woman, and first Australian, to hold the post.

Her research looks at early modern German history, gender history, the history of witchcraft, and visual culture.

Previous Regius Chairs include William Stubbs (1866–1884), Sir Michael Howard CBE (1884–1892) and Hugh Trevor-Roper (1957–1980), appointed Baron Dacre of Glanton by the end of his tenure.

Roper holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Melbourne and the University of Basel and is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a Fellow of the Brandenburg Akademie der Wissenschaften.

She is a former Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow (2021–2023), a former Humboldt Fellow (2019), and an Honorary Visiting Fellow of the History Department University of Melbourne (2010).

Roper completed her doctorate at King’s College London in 1985.

Oriel College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford and will celebrate 700 years since its foundation in 2026.