Geoffrey F Nuttall (1911 - 2007): Puritan Scholar

Abstract

First paragraph: ‘Ah – but that’s not what you said!’: there will be many who, like me, have heard some such remark from Geoffrey Nuttall when, having been challenged on an opinion, we have attempted to explain our point only to be told that, while what we now ventured might make sense, it is not what we had said. If the alacrity with which Geoffrey could interrogate remarks made in conversation was unnerving it was because something was happening to which, by and large, we are unaccustomed: our words were being taken seriously and we were being held to account for them. In such conversations we found ourselves Geoffrey’s companions on a scholarly quest for truth which assumed in us (no matter how little we might deserve it) a commitment and an experience equal to his, and which demanded, in true Puritan fashion, plain dealing between those engaged upon it.