Christopher Allan Stray (born 29 October 1943) is a British retired teacher and academic. He is an expert in classical reception, specializing in the history of classical scholarship and teaching.
Christopher Allan Stray (born 29 October 1943) is a British retired teacher and academic. He is an expert in classical reception, specializing in the history of classical scholarship and teaching.
Born at Norwich, son of Peter Stray and Margaret (née Beard), Stray read Classics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, taking a BA in 1966 and MA in 1985. He worked as a classics teacher, including at Latymer Upper School, West London, and was a member of the JACT Ancient History Committee in the late 1960s, under the chairmanship of Sir Moses Finley.
His academic writings began with his PhD thesis (1994, University College, Swansea) on the history of classical education in England, which was published as Classics Transformed: Schools, Universities and Society in England, 1830-1960 (Oxford University Press, 1998 ISBN 9780198150138). 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 visiting and honorary positions including: an honorary research fellowship in the Department of History and Classics, Swansea University (from 1989); visiting fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge (1996–1998); John D and Rose H Jackson Fellowship at the Beinecke Library, Yale University (2005); senior research fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London (2010–2018); member of the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2012); and visiting fellow commoner, Trinity College, Cambridge (Michaelmas Term 2024).
He has also been active in collaborative research projects, and in the organisation of conferences and colloquia, including: Convener of the Textbook Colloquium (1988–99); co-organiser (with Stephen Harrison and Chris Kraus) of conference on "Classical Commentaries" (Oxford, 2012); member of advisory board, "Classics and Class in Britain", King's College London, 2013–16 (from 2016 "People’s History of Classics"); co-organiser (with Stephen Harrison) of conference on "Liddell & Scott" (Oxford, 2013). A colloquium in his honour was held in Oxford in October 2018, organised by Stephen Harrison.
A Festschrift was published in his honour in 2021: Classical Scholarship and Its History From the Renaissance to the Present. Essays in Honour of Christopher Stray, edited by Stephen Harrison and Christopher Pelling. In 2024, he was awarded the Kenyon Medal by the British Academy "for almost single-handedly creating the field of the institutional history of Classics."
Stray married anthropologist Margaret Kenna, of Swansea University; they have a son.
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