BAAS is sorry to inform our members that Professor Trevor Burnard (Director of the Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull) has died from cancer at the age of 64. Trevor was a long-time supporter of the UK American Studies community and member of BAAS.

We would like to share the announcement below, issued by the Association of Caribbean Historians:

As a scholar of early American, Atlantic history, and the Caribbean, Trevor Burnard’s research focused on plantation societies in the Americas and on the institution of slavery. He attended university in his native New Zealand (Otago) and went on to graduate study (as a student of Jack Greene’s) at Johns Hopkins University. His first academic position, at the University of the West Indies, Mona, was followed by positions at a variety of other universities, including Brunel University, University of Sussex, University of Warwick, and the University of Melbourne. He joined the Hull faculty in 2020.

Burnard authored a number of important works, especially Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (2004). Most recently, he published Writing the History of Global Slavery (2023),Writing Early America: From Empire to Revolution (2023), and Jamaica in the Age of Revolution (2020).

A more detailed memorial of his career will be shared in due course. In the meantime, we express our condolences to his family and many friends.