A First-Rate Scholar and Man of Many Parts Ian David Lewis Michael (1936–2020)

Ian Michael, who died in Madrid on 24 July 2020, aged eighty-four after a long illness, made a deep impression on the world of Hispanic Studies and on all who came across him professionally or personally. In common with several other notable Hispanists, Ian hailed from Neath in South Wales, though the Michael family originally came from Antwerp, fleeing to Wales in the sixteenth century to escape Spanish persecution. His father was Cyril G. Michael and his mother was Glynis Michael (née Lewis). The former played rugby and the latter tennis and Ian himself was a promising school-boy rugby player until injury curtailed his playing days. The sports field’s loss was Hispanism’s gain. Ian began to study Spanish at age thirteen; this, he liked to remember, was to avoid taking physics. He progressed from Neath Grammar School for Boys, to read French and Spanish (he preferred Spanish) at King’s College London where he took a first in 1957. Years later, in 2001, he would become a Fellow of KCL, an honour he specially valued. Among those who taught him and fourteen other students doing Honours at Kings, and who turned him into a Hispanist, were Rafael Martínez Nadal, friend and scholar of Lorca, and Rita Hamilton, who was responsible for developing the Medieval Literature course there and trained quite a number of students like Ian who went on to become eminent Medievalists in their own right.