The Sir Robert Rede's Lecturer is an annual appointment to give a public lecture, the Sir Robert Rede's Lecture (usually Rede Lecture) at the University of Cambridge.[1] It is named for Sir Robert Rede, who was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the sixteenth century.
The initial series of lectures ranges from around 1668 to around 1856. In principle, there were three lectureships each year, on Logic, Philosophy and Rhetoric. These differed from the later individual lectures, in that they were appointments to a lectureship for a period of time, rather than an appointment for a one-off annual lecture. There was also a Mathematics lectureship which dated from an earlier time, while another term used was "Barnaby Lecturer", as the lecturers were elected on St Barnabas Day. A selection of the lecturers, who tended to have studied at Cambridge and be appointed after becoming Fellows of a College, is given below, with a full listing given in the sources.
From 1858, the lecture was re-established as a one-off annual lecture, delivered by a person appointed by the Vice-Chancellor of the university. The names of the appointees and the titles of their lectures are given below.