Eric Gardner Turner
British papyrologist; he was born at Sheffield, 26 Feb. 1911, son of William Ernest Stephen Turner, Professor of Glass Technology at Sheffield University, and Mary Isobel Marshall; he was educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield and Magdalen College, Oxford; he was appointed Assistant in Humanity, University of Aberdeen, 1936; Lecturer in Classics, 1938-48; Reader in Papyrology, University of London, 1948-50, Professor, 1950-78; Director of the Institute of Classical Studies,1953-63; President of the International Association of Papyrologists, 1965-74; Chairman of the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Society, 1956-78, Joint Editor of its Graeco-Roman publications, and Vice-President, 1978- 83; Fellow of the British Academy, 1956 and Hon. And Corr. Member of various European academies; Hon. Dr Phil. et Lettres, Brussels, 1956; Hon Dès, Geneva, 1976; Hon. DLitt, Liverpool, 1978; CBE, 1975, Knighted, 1981; his scholarly work centred on the publication of Greek and Latin papyri from Egypt, both documentary and literary; he published Catalogue of Greek and Latin Papyri and Ostraca in the possession of the University of Aberdeen, 1939; Athenian Books in the fifth and fourth centuries BC., 1952, (2nd ed. 1977); Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library IV, with C H Roberts, 1952; The Hibeh Papyri II, with M. Th. Lenger, 1955; The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Parts XXIV, XXV, XXVII, XXXI, XXIII, XXXVIII, XLI, XLVIII, L, with others, 1957-83; The Abbinnaeus Archive, with H. Bell, V. Martin, and D. van Berchem, 1962; New Fragments of the Misoumenos of Menander, 1965; Greek Papyri. An Introduction, 1968 2nd ed. 1980; Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World, 1971, 2nd ed. 1987; The Girl from Samos or The In-Laws, 1972; The Papyrologist at Work, 1973; The Written Word on Papyrus, with T. Pattie, 1974; The Typology of the Early Codex, 1977; The terms recto and verso: the anatomy of the papyrus roll, 1978; fifty colleagues from ten countries produced a volume Papyri Greek and Egyptian edited in Honour of E. G. Turner, 1981; he died at Inverness, 20 April 1983.
