His parents both served in France during the First World War, his father with the Royal Flying Corps and his mother as a nurse.
His father later became an engineer working in the construction of heavy industrial buildings for Ashmore, Benson, and Pease (later Davy International; now part of Siemens).
He married fellow Cambridge geographer June in 1961 and had a daughter, Aldabra (named after the island) and a son, Michael.
[4] Stoddart was possibly the first person from his local grammar school (now demolished) to enter the University of Cambridge, in 1956 (a schoolfriend secured a place at Oxford).
He returned there for further research into corals and the plants of the cays, working for Louisiana State University before and after a major hurricane, tracking its effects on atolls and reefs.
He was appointed chair of department and professor of geography at the University of California, Berkeley in 1988, holding the headship until 1994, when he was forced aside by the dean.
In 1967, a similar expedition went to Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Islands, prior to its appropriation for a controversial American base.