David Gillard

David Gillard, who has died aged 82 of cancer, taught modern European history for 35 years at the University of Glasgow and devoted a large part of his academic life researching the causes of war and the failures of diplomacy.

Born in Plymouth, his life-long interest in history began with the outbreak of war in 1939, when he chose not to be evacuated. Most of his secondary-school career was at an emergency high school in the city.

The direct experience of the devastating Plymouth Blitz in 1941, when his house was hit by an unexploded incendiary bomb, gave him a lasting interest in the origins of the Second World War.

His last published work, Appeasement in Crisis: from Munich to Prague October 1938-March 1939 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), sets out to explain the seemingly radical break with the traditions of British foreign policy in the readiness to fight for Polish independence.

In 1946, at the early age of 16, he became a student in Professor W N Medlicott's History Department at University College, Exeter, then still an outpost of London University. Wartime conditions still prevailed. Students were required to bring their ration books and separate containers for their sugar and butter rations. For winter terms, they were advised to bring travelling rugs or eiderdowns.

Three years later he gained a BA (Hons) First Class. Following this, the University of London awarded him a postgraduate studentship. His research work for his Ph D dealt with Anglo-German relations in the 1880s and early 1890s. His thesis was presented in June 1952 under the title, The Foreign Policy of Lord Salisbury, 1888–1892. W N Medlicott, who in 1953 was appointed Stevenson Professor of International History at the London School of Economics, considered his student and protégé to be a historian of genuine originality and distinction and encouraged him to apply for university appointments.

National service in the RAF from 1952-54 interrupted and changed the course of his life. Short-listed for several university posts, he was unable to attend for interview as he had been posted to the British Air-Force base at Habbaniya in Iraq.

This proved to be an interesting interlude for, having been sent to the Joint Services School for Linguists, he qualified as a translator of Russian and spent the rest of his National Service monitoring Soviet Air Force radio communications. His Russian studies had given him an interest in the history of Anglo-Russian relations, resulting in his book, The Struggle for Asia, 1828-1914: a Study in British and Russian Imperialism (Methuen, 1977).

On demobilisation in 1954, he became a temporary lecturer at Rosyth Technical College teaching general subjects to apprentices at the Naval Dockyard. In 1956, he applied for and was offered the post of assistant lecturer in modern history at Glasgow University. Sir Hector Hetherington, the then principal, had been principal and professor of philosophy at University College, Exeter, and was pleased to welcome this west countryman to Glasgow.

David Gillard always maintained that his real education began when, as a schoolboy, he joined the Plymouth Public Library. He was an omnivorous reader and became seriously interested in all aspects of the life and works of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan poets.

One visiting academic, on looking at the books in his study inquired: "Where are the history books?" His shelves held most of the great works in the canon of English literature, the complete works of PG Wodehouse and, above all, a vast collection of 20th century British detective fiction. At the time of his death, he was putting the finishing touches to a light-hearted but thorough analysis of British detective fiction from 1920-1970.

After retiring as senior lecturer in modern history in 1990, Mr Gillard moved to the Borders, from where he made frequent working visits to West Register House and the National Library in Edinburgh.

It is perhaps ironic that someone who devoted so much of his professional life to studying the causes of violent conflict and in retirement all manner of violent death in the detective story, was the mildest-mannered of men. He was unfailingly kind, courteous and generous in all his dealings with students, colleagues, friends and family.

David Gillard died in the Borders General Hospital after the cancer which had caused him to lose an eye spread to his liver. He is survived by his wife Joan, children Penny and Nicholas and granddaughter Natasha.