Ivan Donald Margary, (1896–1976) was a British historian who, during his lifetime, became the leading authority on
Roman roads in Great Britain.
He wrote numerous works on Roman roads of which his most influential and complete was ''Roman Roads In Britain''.
He was educated privately and then matriculated into
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth-oldest college of the un ...
in 1913 to study chemistry.
From 1914 to 1919, he served in the
Royal Sussex Regiment
The Royal Sussex Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army that was in existence from 1881 to 1966. The regiment was formed in 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 35th (Royal Sussex) Regiment of Foot ...
of the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
Having been a member of the
Officers Training Corps
The Officers' Training Corps (OTC), more fully called the University Officers' Training Corps (UOTC), are military leadership training units operated by the British Army. Their focus is to develop the leadership abilities of their members whilst ...
, he was commissioned as a
second lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank.
Australia
The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
on 8 April 1915.
He was injured multiple times, including a broken ankle and being shot in the back and neck.
He returned to Oxford after the war and graduated with a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
(BA) degree in 1921.
Margary's primary gift to the study of Roman roads was the development of a catalogue system known as
Margary numbers
Margary numbers are the numbering scheme developed by the historian Ivan Margary to catalogue known and suspected Roman roads in Britain in his 1955 work ''The Roman Roads of Britain''. They remain the standard system used by archaeologists and hi ...
,
numbering Roman roads so that they could be referred to by catalogue number to avoid confusion, and to allow cross-referencing of the same road between different studies and authors.
In later life, he financed the excavation of
Fishbourne Roman Palace
Fishbourne Roman Palace (or Fishbourne Villa) is located in the village of Fishbourne, Chichester in West Sussex. The palace is the largest Roman residence north of the Alps. and has an unusually early date of 75 CE, around thirty years af ...
, near
Chichester
Chichester () is a cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Date:2009. It is the only ci ...
in West Sussex, and the building of ''Margary
Quad
Quad as a word or prefix usually means 'four'. It may refer to:
Government
* Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States
* Quadrilateral group, an informal group which inc ...
'' at Exeter, his old college. He contributed to the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
's excavation at
Avebury Stone Circle and to the archaeology department of the
British School at Rome
The British School at Rome (BSR) is an interdisciplinary research centre supporting the arts, humanities and architecture.
History
The British School at Rome (BSR) was established in 1901 and granted a UK Royal Charter in 1912. Its mission is " ...
. His other interests included meteorology and agriculture.
Honours and awards
In 1932, Margary was elected Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries of London
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...
. He declined all other nominations for recognition.
[
]
Selected works
* ''Roman Roads in Britain'', Phoenix House, London. Vol. 1 (South, 1955) and Vol.2 (North, 1957)
References
1896 births
1976 deaths
Scholars of Roman history
20th-century British historians
Historians of Roman Britain
Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Royal Sussex Regiment officers
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