Congratulations to Magdalen alumna Dr Anna Keay OBE (1992), who has been appointed to the Committee responsible for recommending proposals for a permanent memorial and legacy programme to remember Queen Elizabeth II.
The committee will consider Her Late Majesty’s life of public service, and oversee the creation of a permanent memorial and national legacy programme. Each of the seven members of this committee bring unique knowledge and experience to the project, and will be meeting for the first time this month. Their aim is to consider Queen Elizabeth II’s long life of public service and the causes she supported along with ideas collected from a wide cross section of the public to ensure that ideas and suggestions from everyone can be captured and considered.
Dr Anna Keay OBE is a historian, curator and broadcaster born and brought up in the West Highlands of Scotland. She read Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford and has a Ph.D. from Queen Mary, University of London. She was formerly a Curator of Historic Royal Palaces and the Curatorial Director of English Heritage and is currently Director (CEO) of the historic buildings charity the Landmark Trust.
Anna has written and broadcast widely on British history and culture including contributing to BBC coverage of the Funeral of HM Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of HM The King. Her most recent book, The Restless Republic (William Collins, 2022) won the Duff Cooper Prize for Non-Fiction and was The Sunday Times History Book of the Year, 2022.
Over the next two years, plans will be drawn up for how to best remember our longest reigning monarch. They’ll be unveiled in 2026 to coincide with what would have been Queen Elizabeth’s hundredth birthday year.