Teacher and sociologist, was born in Mortlake on 30 June 1929, of a family with roots in Dorset. His father was chauffeur to Archbishop Davidson and was later a taxi-driver and a revivalist preacher at Hyde Park, having been converted under the preaching of Smith, Rodney, MBE ('Gipsy Smith'). The family attended Barnes Methodist Church. David was baptized at Westminster Central Hall by Dinsdale Young.

After leaving East Cheam Grammar School, he trained as a teacher at Westminster College just before it moved to Oxford.. While still teaching he took his first degree by correspondence course with Wolsey Hall, Oxford, followed by a doctorate in 1964 at the LSE, published in 1965 as Pacifism: A Sociological and Historical Study. At Sheffield, where he spent two years as a lecturer, Martin met and married the sociologist and musician Bernice Thompson. From Sheffield he returned to the LSE as Lecturer, Reader and ,from 1971 until retirement in 1989, Professor, producing a prolific list of 24 books and numerous contributions to other titles on the sociology of religion. In 2000 he received an honorary doctorate from Helsinki University and in 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

In his work he challenged the prevailing emphasis on secularisation and contributed significantly to the study of Pentecostalism in South America. He was a devotee of the language of the King James Bible and the Prayer Book, a skilful pianist and a lover of English poetry. From 1953 to 1977 he was a Methodist local preacher. After undertaking theological studies at Westcott House, Cambridge, in 1979 he was ordained into the Anglican Church and served as a non-stipendiary Assistant Priest at Guildford Cathedral. He died on 8 March 2019.

Hs many books included A Sociology of English Religion (1967), A General Theory of Secularization (1978), Tongues of Fire (1990) and Pentecostalism: the World their Parish (2002) .His autobiographicalThe Education of David Martin: the making of an unlikely sociologist,was published in 2013.

Category: Person
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