He was educated at Wolstanton Grammar School, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire (now The Orme Academy) and Queens' College, Cambridge, where he received a double First Class Honours Degree in history.
He was Reader in History (1947–1972) and Dean of Men[1] (1965–1968)[2] at Royal Holloway College, University of London, during the introduction of male undergraduates.
[4] It included the erotic passages omitted in the edition of 1893–99 by H. B. Wheatley which "could hardly have been published in Victorian England without causing offence".
The Diary was described in a Times review by Bernard Levin as "the absolutely complete and unimprovably definitive edition [...] so exceptional that it can be said to have set new standards of scholarship".
His son is Sir David Latham QC, who has served as Chairman of the Parole Board for England and Wales.