The Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture 2026 - William Whyte: The Future of National Biography

All welcome
Free admission

The Ben Pimlott Lecture is hosted by the journal Modern British History, Oxford University Press Journals and King's Contemporary British History. This lecture series was established in 2006 in honour of the late Ben Pimlott and in association with the Institute of Contemporary British History, with which Ben had close ties. Each lecture is published in Modern British History and is available free online.

William Whyte: The Future of National Biography
‘For the morbidly aspirant’, Ben Pimlott once observed, ‘there can be no higher goal … than an obituary in the DNB.’ He reviewed it, contributed to it, and, ultimately if prematurely, found a place within it. As a consequence, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) seems an entirely appropriate subject for an event held to mark his memory. But Pimlott’s reflections have a particular value as we assess the ODNB today, whether his 1989 inaugural lecture, on ‘The Future of Political Biography’, or his account of the DNB itself, published in 1993, just as the revision of the Dictionary under Colin Matthew’s editorship began. Not least, his identification of ‘the sense of quaintness about the notion of a “national biography”’ continues to provoke important questions about the nature of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: questions that are made all the more pressing by the social, political, and technological change since he wrote. This lecture will ask whether there is a future for national biography and, if there is, what form it might take.

William Whyte is Professor of Social and Architectural History and a fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. A trustee of English Heritage, he succeeds David Cannadine as general editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in 2026. His books include The University: A History in Stone, Silk, and Blood (2026) and, as editor, the forthcoming Oxford Illustrated History of England.

Location: Council Room, Strand Campus, King's College London, WC2R 2LS

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.