Lees Knowles Lecture

The Lees-Knowles lecturers were established at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1912 and are given by distinguished experts in military and naval history.

List of Lecturers

1915 J.S. Corbett The Great War after Trafalgar

1922 Col. Maxwell Earle The principle strategical problems affecting the British Empire

1923 Col. Maxwell Earle The principles of war

1924 Col. M.A. Wingfield The eight principles of war as exemplified in the Palestine campaign, 1915-1918

1924 Lt.-Col. F. Nosworthy Russia before, during and after the Great War

1925 Major-Gen. Sir Frederick Maurice Statesmen and soldiers in the American civil war

1927 Major-Gen. Sir Wilkinson Bird Some early crises of the war, and the events leading up to them: Western Front 1914

1928 Major Gen. Sir George Aston Problems of empire defence

1929 A.R. Hinks Frontiers and boundary delimitations

1930 W.W. Tarn Hellenistic military developments

1931 Adm. Sir Herbert W. Richmond Capture at sea in war

1932 Capt. Basil H. Liddell Hart The movement of military thought from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and its influence on European history

1933 John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir) Oliver Cromwell as a soldier

1934 Air Com. L E O Charlton Military aeronautics applied to modern warfare

1936 C.R.M.F. Cruttwell The role of British strategy in the Great War

1937 Gen. Sir Edmund Ironside British military history from 1899 to the present

1939 Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell Generalship

1940 Gen. Sir Frederick Maurice Public opinion in war

1941 Capt. Cyril Falls The nature of modern warfare

1942 Maj. Gen. Sir George Lindsay War on the civil and military fronts

1946 Col. A.H. Burne Military strategy as exemplified in World War II

1947 Air-Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder Air power in modern warfare

1948 Adml. Sir William James The influence of sea power upon the history of the British people

1949 Sir Ronald Weeks Organisation and equipment for war

1950 Sir Henry Tizard The influence of war on science

1951 Gen. Sir William Platt The campaign against Italian East Africa, 1940-1

1951 Capt. G.H. Roberts RN The battles of the Atlantic

1952 Air Chief Marshal Sir Roderic Hill Some human factors in war

1953 Sir Fitzroy Maclean Irregular warfare

1954 Gen. Sir Brian Horrocks Are we training for the last war?

1956 Prof. P.M.S. Blackett Atomic weapons 1945-1955

1957 J.P.W. Ehrman Cabinet government and war, 1890-1940

1958 Field Marshal Lord Harding Mediterranean strategy in the 2nd World War

1958 Sir Leslie Rowan Arms and economics: the changing challenge

1960 Capt. Steven W. Roskill Maritime strategy in the twentieth century

1961 Firld Marshal Lord Slim The military mind and The spirit of an army

1962 Lt. Gen. Sir John W. Hackett The profession of arms

1963 Dr A. Noble Frankland The strategic air offensive

1965 Sir Solly Zuckerman Science and military affairs

1966 Prof Michael Howard Conduct of British strategy in the 2nd World War

1968 Prof. R.V. Jones Command

1969 Alastair Buchan The changing functions of military force in international politics

1970 Prof. Geoffrey F.A. Best Conscience and the conduct of war, from the French Revolution through the Franco-Prussian war

1971 Prof. F.Harry Hinsley War and the development of the international system

1972 Prof. John Erickson Soviet soldiers and Soviet society

1973 Dr. Piers G. Mackesy Problems of an amphibious power 1795-1808

1974 D. Cameron Watt European armed forces and the approach of the 2nd World War 1933-39

1974 Prof. Herman Bondi Science and defence

1975 Dr. R.L. Clutterbuck Guerilla warfare and political violence

1977 Prof. Christopher Thorne Anglo-American relations and war against Japan 1941-45

1979 F-M Lord Carver Apostles of mobility

1981 Prof. L.W. Martin Evolution of nuclear strategic doctrine since 1945

1983 Alistair Horne The French army and politics 1870-1970

1985 Dr. Geoffrey Parker European warfare 1520-1660

1986 John D. Keegan Some fallacies of military history

1989 Dr Alan Bowman Vindolanda and the Roman Army: New documents from the northern frontier

1990 Maurice Keen English military experience c.1340- c. 1450

1992 Prof William McNeill Dance, drill and bonding in human affairs

1995 Prof Hew Strachan The politics of the British Army 1815-1914

1996 Field-Marshal Sir Peter Inge Military force in a changing world

1998 Prof Keith Jeffery ‘For the freedom of small nations’: Ireland and the Great War

2000 Prof Brian Bond Britain and the First World War: The challenge to historians

2002 Antony Beevor The experience of war

2004 David Parrott 'War, Armies, and Politics in Early Modern Europe: The Military Devolution, 1560-1660'

2006 Mr Ben Shephard. 'What Makes a Soldier? And What Does Not?'