Lady Elish Angiolini LT DBE PC KC was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College in October 2025. The Governing Body voted to elect Lady Elish to an Honorary Fellowship of the College in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the College as its Principal for 13 years. She was a tireless ambassador for the College and devoted her unique energy, wisdom and kindness to strengthening the positive culture for students, Fellows, staff and alumni that makes St Hugh’s so Lady Elish became Principal of St Hugh’s College in In September 2012.
Lady Elish Angiolini LT DBE PC KC FRSE was appointed Lord Advocate in October 2006, the first woman to hold the post as the most senior law officer in Scotland. While in office she took forward the most wide-ranging programme of modernisation in the department’s history. She was the first Lord Advocate to remain in office despite a change in government. Previously she had been appointed Solicitor General for Scotland, again the first woman to hold this ancient post of Law Officer. Following eleven years in office Lady Elish practised as a KC in Scotland.
She chaired the Commission on Women Offenders in 2011 and went on to carry out a number of major inquiries and investigations, including a major review into the Investigation and Prosecution of Rape in London by the Metropolitan Police Service and the Crown Prosecution Service, the National Cremation Investigation, and the Independent Review of Deaths and Serious Incidents in Police Custody for the Home Office; and in 2020 she published a Report of her review into the handling of complaints against the police in Scotland.
She is currently Chair of the Public Inquiry into the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard. Lady Elish was appointed Principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford in 2012. She was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2017. In May 2021 she became Chair of the charity Reprieve. In June 2022 Lady Elish was appointed by Her Late Majesty The Queen to the Most Ancient and most Noble Order of the Thistle. In October 2023, Lady Elish was sworn in as the new Lord Clerk Register of Scotland. She is the first female to hold the role, and was appointed by His Majesty the King, on the recommendation of the Scottish First Minister. Lady Elish Angiolini made history by becoming the first Catholic to hold the position of Lord High Commissioner to the 2025 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May. In October 2025, Lady Elish Angiolini was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford.
