Tributes to American historian William Noel who died after being hit by van in Edinburgh

Tributes have been paid to an American historian and librarian who died after being hit by a van in Edinburgh.

Dr William Noel from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was struck by a white Citroen Relay van on Trinity Crescent on April 10.

The 58-year-old was taken to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh where he died on April 29.

Dr Noel, who was previously honoured by the Obama administration for his commitment to open science, was Associate Librarian for Special Collections at Princeton University at the time of his death.

Tributes have been paid by Cambridge University – where Dr Noel graduated in 1992.

Professor Paul Binski of Cambridge University said: “Dr Noel (Will) was a distinguished alumnus of the department, and was John T. Maltsberger III ’55 Associate University Librarian for Special Collections at Princeton University at the time of his death.

“A graduate of Downing College, Will went on to PhD study with Professor George Henderson, graduating in 1992.

“A medievalist, his research and publication focussed on Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque Psalter illustration.

“Most of his career was spent as a librarian in the United States, where he served as Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and Director of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies.

“Though a scholar of note, Will was in the forefront of digital humanities.

“He is most closely associated with the Archimedes Palimpsest Project, published as The Archimedes Codex in 2007 with the classicist Reviel Netz, which took the latest technology to decipher a lost work of Archimedes hidden beneath a later medieval text rediscovered in 1998.

“Though Will stopped writing of late, he was an energetic and charming force for manuscript studies with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and his death has been greeted with dismay by the medievalist community.

“He was one of the first undergraduate students of the author of this brief memoir, a valued friend and a continuator of Cambridge’s tradition of medieval manuscript study.”

The driver of the white Citroen Relay van, a 40-year-old man, was arrested and released pending further enquiries.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Police Scotland via 101 quoting incident number 2772 of April 10.