Sir Peter Hugh Jefferd Lloyd-Jones
FBA (21 September 1922 – 5 October 2009
[Obituary]
''The Daily Telegraph'', 5 October 2009) was a British classical scholar and
Regius Professor of Greek at the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
.
Early life and education
Lloyd-Jones was educated at
Westminster School
(God Gives the Increase)
, established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560
, type = Public school Independent day and boarding school
, religion = Church of England
, head_label = Hea ...
where he developed an interest in
Modern History
The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also called modern history or modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended approximately 1500 AD). This terminology is a historical periodization that is applie ...
before being converted to
Classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
by his Headmaster,
J. T. Christie.
[Obituary]
in ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' 9 October 2009 He pursued undergraduate and postgraduate studies at
Christ Church,
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, but his studies were interrupted by the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. In February 1942, he was one of a group consisting mostly of classicists from Oxford and Cambridge who were assigned to study Japanese at the secret Bedford Japanese School run by Captain
Oswald Tuck
Instructor Captain Oswald Thomas Tuck (1 September 1876 – 26 February 1950) was a naval officer and teacher of Japanese. He served as a naval instructor in navigation and Japanese and later translated a confidential history of the Russo-Japanes ...
RN. Lloyd-Jones was in the first course run at the school, which lasted for only five months. After Bedford he was sent to the Military Wing at
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
, and then he received further training at the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
and the
Ministry of Economic Warfare
The Minister of Economic Warfare was a British government position which existed during the Second World War. The minister was in charge of the Special Operations Executive and the Ministry of Economic Warfare.
See also
* Blockade of Germany (193 ...
. Subsequently he was posted to the
Wireless Experimental Centre
The Wireless Experimental Centre (WEC) was one of two overseas outposts of Station X, Bletchley Park, the British signals analysis centre during World War II. The other outpost was the Far East Combined Bureau. Codebreakers Wilfred Noyce and Mauric ...
, Delhi, where he worked as an officer in the
Intelligence Corps. According to Oswald Tuck’s account, these three were the ‘key men’ at the Wireless Experimental Centre. He was invited to join the
British Commonwealth Occupation Force
The British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) was the British Commonwealth taskforce consisting of Australian, British, Indian and New Zealand military forces in occupied Japan, from 1946 until the end of occupation in 1952.
At its peak, t ...
in Japan, but turned it down as he was eager to get back to his studies. He ended the War as a
Captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
.
[
]
Career
Lloyd-Jones took a first degree in Greats in 1948 and gained several University prizes. For a while he was a Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...
, and while there met his first wife, Frances Hedley, a Classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
student at Newnham College
Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicent ...
, whom he married in 1953. The couple had two sons and a daughter and were divorced in 1981. In 1951 Lloyd-Jones returned to Oxford where he became the first holder of the E. P. Warren Praelector
A praelector is a traditional role at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. The role differs somewhat between the two ancient universities.
University of Cambridge
At Cambridge, a praelector is the fellow of a college who forma ...
ship at Corpus
Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to:
Linguistics
* Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts
* Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files
* Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics
Music
* ...
.[
Lloyd-Jones supervised many distinguished D. Phil. students, including ]Martin Litchfield West
Martin Litchfield West, (23 September 1937 – 13 July 2015) was a British philologist and classical scholar. In recognition of his contribution to scholarship, he was awarded the Order of Merit in 2014.
West wrote on ancient Greek music, Gree ...
. In his inaugural address as Regius Professor in 1961 he called for a reduction in the emphasis laid on composition taught to undergraduates and suggested that Honour Moderations
Honour Moderations (or ''Mods'') are a set of examinations at the University of Oxford at the end of the first part of some degree courses (e.g., Greats or '' Literae Humaniores'').
Honour Moderations candidates have a class awarded (hence the ' ...
might have to be reformed to encompass studies taken from ancient philosophy and history as well as the traditional literature and language.[
He contributed editions of ]Menander
Menander (; grc-gre, Μένανδρος ''Menandros''; c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His rec ...
's '' Dyscolus'' (1960) and of Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or co ...
(1990, together with Nigel Wilson) to the Oxford Classical Texts
Oxford Classical Texts (OCT), or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, is a series of books published by Oxford University Press. It contains texts of ancient Greek and Latin literature, such as Homer's ''Odyssey'' and Virgil's ''Aeneid'', ...
, and editions and translations of the Aeschylean fragments (1960) and of Sophocles (2000) to the Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and L ...
.[
Lloyd-Jones was elected a ]Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
in 1966 and was a member of five foreign academies, holding honorary doctorates from the universities of Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
, Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
and Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...
. He was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
and the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
. His retirement from the Regius Chair
A Regius Professor
is a university professor who has, or originally had, royal patronage or appointment. They are a unique feature of academia in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The first Regius Professorship was in the field of medicine, and ...
in 1989, after twenty-nine years, was marked by a knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
hood.[
He married his second wife ]Mary R. Lefkowitz
Mary R. Lefkowitz (born April 30, 1935) is an American scholar of Classics. She is the Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she previously worked from 1959 to 2005. She has published ten ...
, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College
Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...
in , in 1982, and spent his last 27 years at their home in Wellesley.
Major publications
*Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, ''Blood for the Ghosts: Classical Influences in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983)
*________ ''Classical Survivals: The Classics in the Modern World'' (London: Duckworth, 1982)
*________ ''Greek Comedy, Hellenistic Literature, Greek Religion, and Miscellanea: The Academic Papers of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1990)
*________ ''Greek Epic, Lyric, and Tragedy: The Academic Papers of Sir Hugh Lloyd Jones'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1990)
*________ ''Greek in a Cold Climate'' (London: Duckworth, 1991)
*________ ''The Justice of Zeus'' (2nd ed. Sather Classical Lectures, no. 42. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983)
*________ ''Mythical Beasts'' (London: Duckworth, 1980)
*________ ''Myths of the Zodiac'' (New York: St. Martin's, 1978)
*Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, ed., ''Females of the Species: Semonides on Women'' (Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes, 1975)
*Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, and Nigel Guy Wilson, ''Sophoclea: Studies on the Text of Sophocles'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1990)
*________ ''Sophocles: Second Thoughts'' (Hypomnemata, no. 100. Götttingen : Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1997)
*Lloyd-Jones, Hugh, and Nigel Guy Wilson, eds., ''Sophoclis Fabulae'', Scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca Oxoniensis (Oxford Classical Texts) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lloyd-Jones, Hugh
1922 births
2009 deaths
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
British Army personnel of World War II
British classical philologists
British classical scholars
Fellows of the British Academy
Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge
Scholars of ancient Greek literature
People educated at Westminster School, London
Knights Bachelor
Intelligence Corps officers
Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of classics
Regius Professors of Greek (University of Oxford)
Translators of Ancient Greek texts
20th-century translators
Members of the American Philosophical Society