Theodore Wade-Gery

Henry Theodore Wade-Gery, generally known as Theodore (born 2 April 1888, Campton Grange near Shefford, Bedfordshire; died 2 January 1972, Oxford) was a classical scholar, historian and epigrapher, and Wykeham Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford.

Life

Born into a long-established Bedfordshire family, he was educated at Winchester College, a contemporary of Arnold J. Toynbee and R.M.Y. Gleadowe, and at New College, Oxford, which he left with a First in Classical Moderations in 1911. After a short spell in the Civil Service he was offered a Fellowship in 1914 at Wadham College.

Almost immediately however he left for military service in World War I in the army on the Western Front, during which he was awarded the MC.

After the end of the war he returned to Wadham, eventually becoming Sub-Warden. In 1928 he married Vivian Westfield, an archaeologist. They had one son, Robert (now Sir Robert) Wade-Gery, born in 1929.

Wade-Gery remained at Wadham until 1939, when on his election as Wykeham Professor of Ancient History he became a Fellow of New College. In 1941 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

He retired from his Chair in 1953 and was offered a five-year Research Fellowship at Merton College, two years of which he spent at Princeton. For the next ten years or so he continued to travel and to write (his last publication was in 1966) until after a few years of declining health he died of a heart attack in 1972.

Works

In 1915 three of his poems were published in that year's "Oxford Poetry" volume [http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/oxpoetry/index/iw.html Oxford Poetry website] , in which work by J.R.R. Tolkien also appeared. After his safe return from the war he published "Terpsichore and Other Poems", a collection of his poetry, in 1922, but future publications were devoted to his academic work and especially to epigraphy.

His writing was mostly in the form of articles in learned journals. His principal publications were:
* "Pindar: Pythian Odes", 1928 (Nonesuch Press), jointly with Maurice Bowra;
* "The Athenian Tribute Lists" (4 vols), 1939-53 (American School of Classical Studies at Athens), as a joint author with Benjamin D. Meritt and Malcolm F. McGregor;
* "The Poet of the Iliad", 1952 (CUP), the published form of his J.H. Gray lectures given at Cambridge in 1949;
* "Essays in Greek History", 1958 (Blackwell).

ources

* [http://www.proc.britac.ac.uk/tfiles/946181A/59p419.pdf Obituary and portrait photograph in the Proceedings of the British Academy 1974]

References

* [http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/oxpoetry/index/iw.html Oxford Poetry website]