Oliver Padel

Oliver James Padel (born 31 October 1948 in St Pancras, London, England) is an English medievalist and toponymist specializing in Welsh and Cornish studies. He is currently Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic in the University of Cambridge. and visiting professor of Celtic at the University of the West of England Biography Padel was born in 1948, the son of John Hunter Padel and his wife Hilda (née Barlow), daughter of Sir Alan Barlow, 2nd Baronet and his wife Nora, (née Darwin), through whom he is a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin. His older sister is the poet Ruth Padel. He was educated at University College School, Hampstead, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, whence he graduated with a BA in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in 1970. He was subsequently awarded an M.Litt. for his thesis on the inscriptions of Pictland by the University of Edinburgh in 1972. In 1992, he took a Litt.D. for his work on Cornish place-names.