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<jats:p>Ray (as he was known to all and sundry) Lyttleton was an important figure in British theoretical astronomy. By nature heterodox, his work was yet underpinned by his remarkable command of that most traditional branch of his subject, dynamical astronomy. His fluency in the relevant fields of mathematics served well to give substance to his imaginative outlook as regards the physical aspects of astronomical and geophysical situations. He had an intense dislike of sloppiness, wherever he thought he found any. If the general herd of his colleagues appeared to him to follow a trend without having properly disproved the alternative, he could be counted on to pursue it with vigour and persistence.</jats:p>