Professor Gordon Campbell elected as fellow of Royal Society of Canada

Gordon Campbell, Emeritus Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Leicester, has been elected to the Royal Society of Canada.

His election to what is the senior national council of Canadian scholars is his third recognition by an Academy. Professor Campbell is also a fellow of the British Academy and a member of Academia Europaea.

Professor Gordon Campbell was born in England but went to school and university in Canada. He is a leading researcher of the poet John Milton and on the King James Bible.

Campbell edited the 400th Anniversary Edition of the King James Bible (2010) which was later used by His Majesty King Charles to recite the Coronation Oath in 2023.

This edition of the book was also purchased for every school in the UK by former Prime Minister David Cameron.

He is also a renowned public orator having given the eulogy at the burial of King Richard III in 2015.

Professor Campbell joined the University of Leicester in 1979 and was awarded an Honorary Degree from the University in 2017.

He was elected to the British Academy in 2011, the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. Gordon was also elected to Academia Europaea in 2019.

On his election to the Royal Society of Canada, Professor Campbell said: "Being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada feels like a kind of completion. It is a particular honour because it comes from the country where I grew up, and was founded by the Governor General, a Scot named Campbell (John Campbell. Marquis of Lorne)."

Campbell continued: "Academies are important contributors to the polities in which they are rooted. In the case of the Royal Society of Canada, it created a national infrastructure for research and advises government on policy, so helping to move Canada from its origins as a marginal colonial state to a G7 state with an important position on the world stage."

More information about the Royal Society of Canada and its Class of 2025 can be found here.