Geoffrey Till

Geoffrey Till (born in London, England, on 14 January 1945) is a British naval historian and emeritus professor of maritime studies in the Defence Studies Department of King's College London. He is the director of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies.

Early life and education The son of Arthur Till, a Royal Air Force officer, and Violet Till, Geoffrey Till studied at King's College London, where he received his B.A. in 1966. Then, he went on to complete his MA in 1968 and PhD in 1976 within the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

Academic career His first academic appointments were at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and the Department of Systems Science at the City University, London. In 1983, he was appointed visiting lecturer at King's College London and in 1989, he was appointed professor of history at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, also teaching at the Open University. On a NATO Defence Fellowship, he was a visiting scholar at the United States Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. In 1989, Till held the Foundation Chair in Military Affairs at the United States Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia.

With the closure of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, Till moved to the Joint Services Command and Staff College, where he served as the Dean of Academic Studies, a position he held concurrently with his King's College London chair and headship of the Department of the Defence Studies Department, until September 2006, when he received a Fellowship of King's College London.

He has written extensively on maritime history and strategy. Till has been reviews editor for the Journal of Strategic Studies since it was launched in 1978, general editor of Brassey’s Seapower: Naval Vessels, Weapons Systems and Technology series since 1987, contributing its first volume on modern sea power, and general series editor of the Frank Cass series on naval policy and history. He sits on the executive committee of the University of Haifa's Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center.

Honours and awards In September 2014, the Royal Swedish Society of Naval Sciences elected him a Corresponding Member.

In 2018, The U.S. Naval War College selected Till as the 2018 Hattendorf Prize Laureate.

Till was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to defence.