John Barns: 1912-1974

John Barns was at the time of his death Professor of Egyptology at Oxford, attached to The Queen’s College like Grenfell, Hunt and Edgar Lobel. His career had fluctuated between papyrology and Egyptology, and he published substantial contributions to The Oxyrhynchus Papyri in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as acting as unofficial curator for a substantial part of the collection.

Eric Turner: 1911-1983

The collection’s debt to Eric (later Sir Eric) Turner is enormous. Lecturer in the University of Aberdeen before the Second World War, later Professor of Papyrology at University College London, it was his energy that kept work on the collection going during a difficult postwar period, and his vision that led to the establishment of the work on the collection as a major project of the British Academy. He was senior General Editor of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri for nearly thirty years and as many volumes; a dozen of them contain publications under his own name.