Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work, including the Wolfson History Prize in 1979 and the Balzan Prize in 2006. Between 1996 and 2008 he was Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge. He is the Emeritus Professor of the Humanities and Co-director of The Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary University of London. Biography Quentin Skinner was born on 26 November 1940, the second son of Alexander Skinner (died 1979) and Winifred Skinner, née Duthie (died 1982). He was educated at Bedford School from the age of seven. Like his elder brother, he won an entrance scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from where he graduated with a double-starred first in history in 1962. Skinner was elected to a fellowship of his college on his examination results, but moved later in 1962 to a teaching fellowship at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he remained until moving to the University of London in 2008. He is now an Honorary Fellow of both Christ's College and Gonville and Caius College. Skinner was appointed to a lectureship in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge in 1965. He spent a sabbatical year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1974–1975, where he was invited to stay, and where he remained until 1979, when he returned to Cambridge as Professor of Political Science. He was appointed to the post of Regius Professor of History in 1996, and in 1999 as pro-vice-chancellor of the university. In 1979 he married Susan James, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College London. They have a daughter and a son, and four grandchildren. He was previously married to Patricia Law Skinner, who was later married to the philosopher Bernard Williams. Skinner has held a number of visiting appointments. He has been Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Social Science at the Australian National University (1970, 1994, 2006); Visiting Professor at Washington University in St. Louis (1982); Directeur d’Etudes Associé at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes (1987); Professeur Associé at Université Paris X (1991); Visiting Professor at the University of Leuven (1992); Visiting Professor at Northwestern University (1995, 2011); Professeur invité at the Collège