My friend and colleague William Lamont, who has died aged 84, was an inspiring historian, a visionary teacher and a wonderful human being. Born in Harrow, Middlesex (now in the London borough of Harrow), Willie was the eldest child of a Hebridean, Hector Lamont, and his wife, Hughina (née MacFadyen). Willie attended Priestmead primary school (interrupted by evacuation to Oban in 1941) and then Harrow Weald grammar school. His thesis topic was the unattractive and combative, but important William Prynne (1600-69), a Puritan lawyer and polemicist. William discovered that the received image of early modern Puritans as cloaking their secular interests in religious language would not do.

Source: The Guardian February 06, 2019 17:48 UTC