KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaican-born cultural theorist and sociologist Stuart Hall is dead.

According to the UK’s Guardian newspaper, the “godfather of multiculturalism” passed away at age 82 following ill-health.

He is revered by many as one of Britain’s leading intellectuals.

According to news agency, Hall’s “writing on race, gender, sexuality and identity, and the links between racial prejudice and the media in the 1970s, was considered groundbreaking”.

Hall was born in 1932 and won a scholarship to Oxford University in 1951.

“What can I really say about this man? I am very sad to hear of his death,” Jamaican High Commissioner Aloun Ndombet-Assamba is quoted in UK media as saying.

“His work and observations in the areas of cultural identity and society in the UK speaks for itself.

“At the time Hall came to Britain, most Jamaicans came to take up menial work. He came as a scholar. He offered Britain a different view of Jamaica, the learned side of Jamaica. He is a great loss to the Jamaican academic community.”

The Guardian said that a documentary about his life by the film-maker John Akomfrah, called The Stuart Hall Project, was shown in cinemas in September.