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

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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

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, he was commissioned as a

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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 h ...

, 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'' 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 {{UK-historian-stub