Christopher Allan Whatley, OBE,

FRHistS The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...

, FRSE, is a well-known and widely published Scottish

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. He has been Professor of Scottish History at the

University of Dundee , mottoeng = "My soul doth magnify the Lord" , established = 1967 – gained independent university status by Royal Charter1897 – Constituent college of the University of St Andrews1881 – University College , ...

since 1997. He is a prominent opponent of Scottish independence and chaired the inaugural meeting of the local Better Together campaign in Dundee during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Whatley left school at 16 years of age, and worked as a shop assistant and semi-skilled machine operator before attending night classes and taking

Highers In the Scottish secondary education system, the Higher () is one of the national school-leaving certificate exams and university entrance qualifications of the Scottish Qualifications Certificate (SQC) offered by the Scottish Qualifications ...

Clydebank College Clydebank College was a further education college in Clydebank, in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It is now part of the merged institution West College Scotland. Subjects offered for full-time study included: Administration and IT; Beauty Therapy ...

in order to obtain a place at the University of Strathclyde. He graduated with a BA in Economic History in 1972, and completed his PhD there in 1975 on the process of industrialisation in Ayrshire. He lectured at Ayr College from 1975 until 1979, when he joined the Department of History at Dundee, where lectured on economic history. Between 1988 and 1992, he taught Scottish History at the

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

, before returning to Dundee as Bonar Professor of Modern History, and was Head of the Department of History from 1995 until 2002. He was appointed Professor of Scottish History in 1997. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences from 2002 until 2006 and was Vice Principal and Head of the College of Arts and Social Sciences from 2006 until 2014. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to Scottish history education. He became a Fellow of

The Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

in 2003. His papers are held by Archive Services at the University of Dundee, along with a collection of material relating to the Act of Union that he compiled with Derek Patrick during the writing of ''The Scots and the Union'' (published 2006).

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of the University of Strathclyde Academics of the University of Dundee Academics of the University of St Andrews Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Officers of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Historical Society 20th-century Scottish historians 21st-century Scottish historians {{UK-historian-stub