Royston James Lambert (7 December 1932 – 25 October 1982) was a British sociologist, educationalist and historian, best known as the one-time headmaster of Dartington Hall School and as the biographer of the Roman Emperor Hadrian's catamite, Antinous.
[3] There he proved to be a model pupil, but having no Latin pass on his Higher School Certificate meant his exhibition to study at Oxford was rescinded and he was unable to take up his place there.
[5] Following the completion of his doctorate, Lambert remained at Sidney Sussex for a further two years as a research fellow before moving to the London School of Economics, where he worked on studies of poverty and nutrition as a Nuffield Senior Sociological Scholar from 1961 to 1964.
In 1964, he founded and became the first director of the Research Unit into Boarding Education, based at King's, which was to provide much of the evidence for the Public Schools Commission report of 1968.
[6] His first monograph on the subject, The State and Boarding Education, was published in 1966, to be followed in quick succession by The Hothouse Society (with Spencer Millham; 1968) and New Wine in Old Bottles?
The Hothouse Society, in particular, was an influential book, which featured extensive interviews with boarding school pupils; Nick Duffell, writing thirty years later, states that Lambert did a "fine job as a sociologist", leaving "a remarkable record" simply by letting the boarders' words speak for themselves, even if he did not always probe the system's darkest recesses.
That, and his recent research output, made him a known figure among the pedagogic community, and two years later he was selected by the Trustees of Dartington Hall to be their boarding school's next headmaster, despite the fact that he had no experience of working in such an environment.