The Revd Dr Stephen Laird, associate lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies, and the University’s Anglican chaplain, has been elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London. The election took place on 23rd October at Burlington House, and the outcome was a unanimous vote in favour of Stephen joining the Fellowship of the Society.
The Society of Antiquaries’ raison d’être is to further and encourage the study of, and public understanding of, cultural heritage across the globe. On the Society’s web site Stephen is hailed as an ‘expert on aspects of 19th- and 20th-century British painting and print-making, with a particular interest in John Piper’.
Stephen is best known at Kent as a chaplain, and as a lecturer in Religious Studies, but his PhD, from the University of Kent, combined his theological interests with his love of art, and he examined the moral and doctrinal dimensions in the Romantic tradition of 19th- and 20th-century British landscape painting. His enduring interest in the subject has earned him this well-deserved accolade.
Details of the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries can be found on their website here: www.sal.org.uk/about-us/about-the-fellowship