Born 1931 in Wakefield, England. Professor of mathematics at the University of Southampton.
Began collecting Scottish dance material, with dance collector and historian Tom Flett in the early- and mid-1950s. Particular research areas included South Uist, Barra, and Western Highlands. He visited Cape Breton Island, Canada, in 1957 where he interviewed a number of dancers, and was the first to conduct dance research in Cape Breton. Material generated from this fieldwork trip was published in 1964 (paperback 1985) as an appendix to J.F. and T.M. Flett’s Traditional Dancing in Scotland and, later his appendix ‘Step-Dancing in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia’ appeared in the 1996 Flett publication Traditional Step-Dancing in Scotland.