Lamar Hill

Lamar Hill joined the Department of History in 1968 three years after the founding of the University of California, Irvine. A well-respected scholar of Tudor and Stuart Britain, his undergraduate teaching, contributions to the graduate program, and research activity focused on the intersection of the law and politics in the formation of the state and in shaping society.

Completing his doctoral training at the University of London, Hill formed part of a generation of scholars in the field that deconstructed institutions and settled assumptions while illuminating the agency of individuals who were neither kings nor queens but were indispensable to the functioning of the state. This was particularly the case of Sir Julius Caesar, an accomplished lawyer and consummate bureaucrat active during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. Hill’s well-received biography entitled Bench and Bureaucracy: The Public Career of Sir Julius Caesar (Stanford University Press, 1988) charted the rise of Caesar to the Chancellor of the Exchequer through a series of appointments to the bench and other offices. In the process Hill brought to light the inter-play of political interests and personal connections in mediating the operation of the law and on-going consolidation of state power. The extensive research that supported this study was anticipated by Hill’s edited volume of Caesar’s treatise The Ancient State, Authoritie, and Proceedings of the Court of Requests (Cambridge Studies in Legal History: University of Cambridge Press, 1975). Early modern religion as much as the law provided a lens through which Hill explored the everyday life and reconstructed the mental world of men and women who inhabited the archipelago in a steady stream of articles and chapters as well as in the doctoral dissertations he supervised.

During a career that spanned over three decades Hill helped build the field on both sides of the Atlantic through his service, particularly in support of young scholars. He was generous in sharing his time, insight and constructive criticism as panel chair, presenter, or commentator at many gatherings of the North American Conference on British Studies and Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies. In 2006 he co-chaired the first ever meeting of the Pacific Coast Conference held at UCI. Hill too was a presence at seminars at major research venues near and far, including the Huntington Library in San Marino, the Folger Library in New York, and the Institution of Historical Research in London.

Douglas Haynes, Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion and Professor
Department of History, UC Irvine
(on behalf of the Department of History)