Mark Bailey

Mark David Bailey, (born 21 November 1960) is a British academic, headteacher and former rugby union player. Since 2020, he has been Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of East Anglia. In 2019, he delivered the James Ford Lectures in British History at Oxford University, which were later published as a book, After the Black Death: Economy, society, and the law in fourteenth-century England. Bailey played rugby union for Cambridge University R.U.F.C., Bedford Blues, London Wasps, and for England. He completed a doctorate at Cambridge during his playing career, and was then elected a fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1986 and then at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1996. He left academia in 1999 to become headmaster of Leeds Grammar School before returning in 2010 when he was appointed Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He left that post after a year to become High Master of St Paul's School, London, while maintaining a visiting professorship at UEA. He had once again been Professor of Late Medieval History at UEA since 2020. Early life Bailey was born on 21 November 1960 in Castleford, Yorkshire. He was educated at Dale Hall Primary School, Ipswich School and Durham University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economic history in 1982. He completed his doctoral studies at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His PhD was awarded in 1987 for his thesis, "At the margin: Suffolk Breckland in the Middle Ages". Sporting career In 1979, Bailey won the Cricket Society's Wetherell Award for the best public school all-rounder. In 1980, he played for the NCA Young Cricketers and made his debut in the Minor Counties for Suffolk, for whom he played until 1991 and served as captain between 1988 and 1990.