Professor Andrew Pettegree has been elected a Vice President of the Royal Historical Society.

The Society, founded in 1868, is the foremost professional society in Great Britain representing historians, and it play an important role promoting and defending the scholarly study of the past. The membership of nearly 3,000 Fellows and members draws together individuals from across the world, engaged professionally in researching and presenting public history, whether in archives, libraries, museums or the heritage industry.

The Society aims to maintain professional standards within the discipline, and to represent the views of its membership to government bodies and to the public at large.  The society is also an important historical publisher.

Professor Pettegree has previously served as an officer of the Society, when, as Literary Director, he took charge of the Society’s programme of publishing historical documents, the Camden Society.  In 2012 he will chair the panel of judges for the Gladstone Prize, which honours the best first book published in Britain on any topic that is not primarily British history.