Neil McKendrick is an historian with expertise in social and economic history, in particular eighteenth-century English culture. He is Emeritus Reader in Social and Economic History at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and former Master of Gonville and Caius College. He was an undergraduate at Christ’s, a Research Fellow, and has been an Honorary Fellow of the College since 1996.
Neil was awarded an Entrance Scholarship to Christ’s to read History, graduating with his BA in 1956, and in 1958 he was elected to a Research Fellowship at the College. Later the same year Gonville & Caius College offered him a Fellowship and College Lectureship in History, and in 1959 he became Director of Studies in History, holding these positions until 1996; he was also a Tutor at Caius from 1961-69. Over almost 40 years of teaching at Caius his students achieved record numbers of Firsts and starred Firsts in History.
Alongside those College roles, he took up a University Assistant Lectureship in History in 1961, promoted to Lecturer in 1964. He taught Modern English Social and Economic History in Part I of the Historical Tripos and Business, Literature and Society, 1690-1990 in Part II. He was Secretary to the Faculty Board of History from 1975 to 1977, and Chairman of the History Faculty from 1985 to 1987. In 1995 he was elected Reader in Social and Economic History, retiring in 2002.
Neil became the 40th Master of Caius in 1996, leading the College to success academically, but also in sport and music, and enhancing both its financial position and architectural heritage. On retirement in 2005 he became a Life Fellow of the College.
With John Brewer and J H Plumb he wrote the influential The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England (1982); he has written on various aspects of economic history, capitalism, enterprise, science and culture, and is noted for his work on Josiah Wedgwood and the Industrial Revolution.
Photo credit: Prof Yao Liang, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge