Acclaimed Culloden historian and leading Jacobite expert Christopher Duffy has died

Dr Christopher Duffy, who has died age 86, has been praised for working tirelessly for the preservation of the Culloden Battlefield.

Bookmark
Share
Comments

12:14, 17 NOV 2022

Tribute has been paid following the death of one of the foremost experts on the Jacobite uprising and Battle of Culloden.

Dr Christopher Duffy, who has died age 86, worked tirelessly for the preservation of the Culloden Battlefield against development. He also made the discovery that the geographic scale of the battle was much wider than previously thought.

He served as Chair of the 1745 Association between 2014 and 2016 and was, at the time of his death, an Honorary Vice Chair of the Association.

Dr Duffy read history at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours and going on to take a DPhil in 1961. He then taught military history at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the college of the British General Staff.

Throughout his career he also published widely on military history, with a particular focus on the eighteenth and early nineteenth century including the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars.

Dr Christopher Duffy (Image: Orion Books)

Paying tribute Michael Nevin chair of The 1745 Association paid tribute to his former colleague saying "conservation will be one of his enduring legacies".

He is regarded as "undoubtedly the leading Jacobite scholar of his generation" Nevin said, with his book Fight for a Throne (2015), developing his earlier work, The '45: Bonnie Prince Charlie and the untold story of the Jacobite Rising (2003), likely to remain the authoritative work on military history of the Rising of 1745.

Forensic expertise led him to Hatton Garden heist trial

Mr Nevin added: "Christopher's research comprehensively disproved the conventional wisdom prevailing prior to the publication of The '45 that the Rising was doomed to failure from the outset.

"One of the gloomier conclusions to which his study of military history led him is that the only constraint on the savagery of warlords is their fear of the possible consequences of retaliation for them personally. If correct, this suggests that the only way to preserve liberty against the constant threat of tyranny is not through international treaties, however well-intentioned, but through the threat of superior force and, ultimately, nuclear deterrence.

"After Christopher stepped down as Chair of the 1745 Association following a heart attack, we were fortunate that, although physically frail, he remained mentally alert, and applied his considerable intellect to undertaking further research on the Battle of Culloden.

"In later years, he applied CSI forensic techniques with which he had become familiar as witness adviser in the High Court on a number of leading cases, including the Hatton Gardens Burglary of 2015, to deepen his understanding of Culloden.