British Academy honours Dame Lynne Brindley and Professor Andy Orchard

Dame Lynne Brindley, Master of Pembroke, has been elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the British Academy, while Professor Andy Orchard, Pembroke Fellow and Professor of Anglo-Saxon, is one of the 42 distinguished academics to be elected to a Fellowship this year.

Professor Orchard’s appointment as FBA comes as the Fellowship of the Academy passes 1,000 members for the first time.  He said: “I am deeply honoured to have been elected into Fellowship by such an extraordinary gathering of excellent academics, many of whose works I have read and admired for many years; it is also a particular privilege, pleasure, and source of Pembrokian pride, to be elected in the same cohort as our own outstanding Master!”

Dame Lynne Brindley is one of only three new Honorary Fellows to be announced this year.  Responding to the news of her election, Dame Lynne commented: “this is a very great honour and I couldn’t be more pleased.  The British Academy plays a crucial role in support of the humanities and social sciences and election to an Honorary Fellowship of such a distinguished community is a rare privilege.”

The British Academy is an independent national academy of Fellows elected for their eminence in research and scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.  There are only 27 Honorary Fellows of the Academy, including Neil MacGregor, Baroness Warnock, Lord Woolf, Lord Bragg, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Dame Fiona Reynolds, Baroness Kennedy and Dame Carol Anne Duffy.

Announcing the 2015 elections, Lord Stern, President of the British Academy, said: “Our Fellows play a vital role in the work of the Academy; encouraging younger researchers, engaging in public discussion of the great issues and ideas of our time, and contributing to policy reports. Their collective work and expertise are testament to why research in the humanities and social sciences is vital for our understanding of the world and humanity.”

Dame Lynne Brindley was the CEO and Board member of The British Library from 2000 – 2012.  She came to Pembroke in 2013.  She has served in many senior research library and information technology roles in UK universities, served on the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the ESRC Research Resources Board.  She has chaired numerous reviews and national initiatives on the role of libraries, digital information services, research publishing and online learning. 

Professor Andy Orchard is Oxford University’s Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, and a specialist in Old English and Norse language and literature.  From 2007 to 2013 he was Provost of Trinity College, University of Toronto where he had been a Fellow since 2003.  During the 1990s he was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and a lecturer in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.  Professor Orchard was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012.

For further information see the British Academy website.