Martin Rees but has criticised militant atheists for being too hostile to religion. He is a member of the Labour Party. Martin Rees Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been Astronomer Royal since 1995 and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010. Rees was born on 23 June 1942 in York, England. After a peripatetic life during the war his parents, both teachers, settled with Rees, an only child, in a rural part of Shropshire near
John Rees (musician) at that time, he gained some notability as the composer of a cantata he entered into a Treherbert eisteddfod competition. A small fund was established by Rees' friends for his studies at Aberystwyth with Joseph Parry. When these funds ran low, Rees was faced with the possibility of leaving the university until David Jenkins arranged for him to teach Solfa classes in Pen-y-garn. Rees travelled to Emporia, Kansas in 1882; he then entered the University of Toronto, where he received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1889. Rees later held a teaching position at the university while he again visited