Lord Annan was the first full-time Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, Chairman of the Trustees of the National Gallery, a Trustee of the British Museum and a Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He wrote the Annan report on the future of broadcasting in 1977. He made his name as a historian of ideas with his study of Leslie Stephen, and is perhaps best known for his often-quoted article on The Intellectual Aristocracy and his book about his own generation, Our Age.