David C. Elliot
1917 – 2007

David C. Elliot, professor of history, emeritus, died on November 21. He was 90.

Born in Larkhall, Scotland, Elliot was the son of a minister. He attended the University of St. Andrews, where in 1938 he met Nancy Haskins, an exchange student from Chattanooga, Tennessee. The next year, they decided to get married.

India was then under British colonial rule. Elliot joined the Indian Civil Service, of which only about 1,000 members governed the country at a given time. In 1940, he was sent to the Punjab region at what today is the northern border of India and Pakistan. At 23, he governed an area larger than Scotland, and he spent much of his time traveling the countryside on horseback. He would return to India in 1997 for the 50th anniversary of the nation’s independence.

In order for Haskins to join Elliot in India, she had to be a British citizen—or at least married to one. She went to South Carolina, which recognized common law marriage, and married Elliot by proxy. She spent the next six years trying to join him in India, finally succeeding in 1945. They had a second wedding in Lahore.

The couple left India in 1947 and went to the United States, where Elliot studied history at Harvard. He earned a master’s degree in 1948 and his PhD in 1951. He later earned a second master’s from Oxford in 1956. Immediately after Harvard, he ventured out west to Caltech, became an assistant professor, and was appointed a full professor in 1960. He served as secretary of the faculty from 1973 to 1985, before retiring in 1986.

Elliot’s research interests included the Liberal Party in Scotland, the English Restoration, arms control, and national defense. A consultant for RAND, NASA, and the Ford Foundation, he served as a trustee and honorary trustee of the Institute of Current World Affairs, and he spent 30 years on the board of trustees of Westridge School in Pasadena. He was chairman of Caltech’s 75th anniversary celebration and, in 1977, Caltech students voted him the most popular professor. On his own time, Elliot was an avid golfer and bridge player.

Predeceased by his son, John, in 1991 and his wife in 1994, he is survived by his daughters, Nan Elliot Hale and Enid Elliot, a son-in-law, Richard Kool; and four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. —MW