David Keir (historian)

Sir David Lindsay Keir (22 May 1895 – 2 October 1973) was a British historian and educator.

[1] His Scottish father was a Presbyterian minister, originally from Aberuthven, and moved several times during Keir's childhood, from Bellingham to Newcastle, Birkenhead, and finally Glasgow, where Keir attended the Glasgow Academy, an independent school.

In 1913, he began a degree at Glasgow University, but the First World War interrupted his studies and he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the King's Own Scottish Borderers.

After the war, he returned to university, at New College, Oxford, where he studied history, obtaining a first class degree in 1921.

In 1949, Keir was elected Master of Balliol College, Oxford, bringing him back to England.