John Bryan Ward Perkins and Geraint Dyfed Barri Jones
John Bryan (J.B.) Ward Perkins (3 February 1912 - 28 May 1981) was a Classical archaeologist and Director of the British School of Rome. Born in Kent, he was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford. He was a Craven Fellow and Senior Demy at Magdalen College until 1936, when he was appointed Assistant in the London Museum at Lancaster House, under the Keepership of Mortimer Wheeler.
He was briefly held the position of Professor of Archaeology at the Royal University of Malta in 1939 but returned home to volunteer following the outbreak of the Second World War. Serving under Wheeler, the war years took him to North Africa, where he was seconded to organize care of the antiquities under the Military Government in Libya and after re-joining his regiment in Italy, was appointed head of the Monuments and Fine Arts Sub-Commission for Italy, which documented damage to monuments in Italy caused by bombing during the war.
He was appointed Director of the British School at Rome, which had been closed during the war years, in June 1945, a post he held until his retirement in 1974. He died in Cirenchester in 1981.
Ward-Perkins was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Commander of the British Empire. He was a member of the Pontificia Accademia in Rome, the German Archaeological Institute, the Royal Academy of Stockholm, and the Academy of Naples.
Amongst his many notable publications are Architettura romana (1974, Milan: Electa) and Cities of ancient Greece and Italy: planning in classical antiquity (1974, New York: Braziller).
Geraint Dyfed Barri (G.D.B.) Jones (4 April 1936 - 16 July 1999) was born in St. Helens in Lancashire. He attended High Wycombe Royal Grammar School and went on to study Greats at Jesus College, Oxford, in the late 1950s, but found himself increasingly drawn into Roman archaeology as one of the last pupils of Professor (later Sir) Ian Richmond.
Following the completion of his DPhil he became involved in the South Etruria Survey (1959 - 62) co-ordinated by John Bryan Ward-Perkins. He was subsequently employed in 1963 - 64 as a post-doctoral researcher on the Apulia project.
Appointed lecturer in ancient history and archaeology in the Department of History at Manchester University in 1964, Barri Jones was a key player in the eventual creation of a Department of Archaeology. In 1971, he was promoted to Professor of the department. He served in this role until his untimely death at the age of 63 in 1999.
Renowned for his field work, he was involved in excavations of Roman sites in Wales and Northern England before setting sights on Libya in the 1960s, first in the Sahara, and then at Tocra and Euhesperides (Benghazi).
From 1979 to 1989 he co-directed a project which explored the technology of Roman period farming in the Libyan pre-desert, with the results published in more than 30 specialist articles and an acclaimed two-volume final report (Farming the Desert: the Unesco Libyan Valleys Survey, 1996). Returning to the problems of Libyan coastal cities, he helped co-ordinate and edit the publication of earlier British work at Lepcis Magna (The Severan Buildings of Lepcis Magna, 1993).
