Sir Christopher Alan Bayly,FBA,FRSL (18 May 1945 – 18 April 2015) was a British historian specialising inBritish Imperial,Indian andglobal history.^[1][2] From 1992 to 2013, he wasVere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at theUniversity of Cambridge.

Bayly was fromTunbridge Wells,England, where he attendedThe Skinners School. He studied atBalliol College, Oxford and graduated with aBachelor of Arts (BA) degree. He then remained at theUniversity of Oxford and undertookpost-graduate study atSt Antony's College, Oxford.^[3] He completed hisDoctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1970 with athesis titledThe development of political organisation in the Allahabad locality, 1880–1925^[4] underJohn Andrew Gallagher.

Bayly was theVere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at theUniversity of Cambridge from 1992 to 2013. He was also a trustee of theBritish Museum.^[5] In 2007, he succeededSir John Baker asPresident ofSt Catharine's College, Cambridge. Bayly also became the Director of Cambridge's Centre of South Asian Studies. He was co-editor ofThe New Cambridge History of India and sat on the editorial board of various academic journals.^[5] He also served on the inaugural Social Sciences jury for theInfosys Prize in 2009.

In 1990, Bayly was elected aFellow of the British Academy (FBA). In 2004 he was awarded theWolfson History Oeuvre Prize for his many contributions to the discipline. In the 2007Queen's Birthday Honours, it was announced that he had been appointed aKnight Bachelor 'for services to History'.^[6] Upon being informed of the knighthood, he stated: "I regard this not only as a great personal honour but, as an historian of India, as recognition of the growing importance of the history of the non-western world."^[7]

Bayly was married toSusan Bayly, a professor of historical anthropology at the University of Cambridge.^[2] Bayly died inHyde Park, Chicago, on 18 April 2015, a month before his 70th birthday. He was in his second and last year as the Vivekananda Visiting Professor when he died.^[8] In 2016, Bayly became the first person to be posthumously awarded theToynbee Prize for global history.^[9] After Bayly's death, theRoyal Asiatic Society established in his honour the annual Bayly Prize for a distinguished doctoral thesis in an Asian subject.^[10]

• The Local Roots of Indian Politics: Allahabad, 1880–1920 (1975)
• Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (1983)
• Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (1988)
• Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830. London and New York: Longman (1989)
• Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (1996)
• Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (1997)
• The Birth of the Modern World: 1780–1914 (2004)
• Bayly, Christopher; Harper, Timothy (2005).Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945. Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-674-01748-1.
• Bayly, Christopher; Harper, Timothy (2007).Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia. Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-674-02153-2.
• Bayly, Christopher Alan (2012).Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire. Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-1-139-50518-5.
• Remaking the Modern World, 1900–2015: Global Connections and Comparisons (2018)

• Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 24 July 2014 (video)

• 1945 births
• 2015 deaths
• People from Royal Tunbridge Wells
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• Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford
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• Historians of South Asia
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• People educated at The Skinners' School
• Trustees of the British Museum
• Historians of India
• Institute directors
• 20th-century British writers
• 20th-century British historians
• 21st-century British writers
• 21st-century British historians
• 20th-century British male writers
• Vere Harmsworth Professors of Imperial and Naval History
• World historians

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