My husband, David Lyon, who has died aged 87, spent his working life in further education as one of the youngest and then one of the longest-serving college principals in Britain. His first job, in Kenya in 1960, involved inspecting and teaching in remote schools. While he lived there he started to research the development of African government in Kenya between 1900 and 1962, which led to a PhD from Nottingham University in 1966.
Returning to the UK in 1962 he became a teacher at colleges in Derby, Harlow and Nottingham before becoming principal of Grantham College in Lincolnshire in 1971, aged 36. After his first marriage, to Pamela (nee Reed), ended in divorce, he moved to Chesterfield College of Technology in Derbyshire as principal in 1979 and was reappointed when it merged with Chesterfield College of Art in 1984, becoming one of the larger colleges in the Midlands. We met there when I was a head of department, and we were married in December 1985.
