A HISTORIAN and university don with Leigh links has died at the age of 89.

Lord Bullock, whose father was a gardener and former minister at Leigh Unitarian Church in Twist Lane, wrote a famous biography on Hitler and was the first Master of St Catherine's College, Oxford.

He published his first work Hitler: A Study in Tyranny in 1952 and nearly 40 years later followed with a sequel Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives.

In between came several other works including a three volume work on Labour politician and foreign secretary Ernest Bevin.

Lord Bullock, born Alan Louis Charles Bullock, in Wiltshire revered his father, a Liberal, who campaigned for Lloyd George and moved to the Leigh area in the 1920s.

A respected academic he became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1967, was knighted in 1972 and created a Life Peer in 1976.

He received honorary doctorates from at least eight universities and was an honorary fellow of five other colleges at Oxford apart from St Catherine's.

He leaves a wife, Hilda, three sons and a daughter.