Page 10 - John Barber's Oakham Castle and its archaeology

That notice, slightly adapted, follows here and is likewise also based on that which first appeared in the
Annual Report: Proceedings 1997 of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1998), of which he was a
Fellow, and places his life and work in a wider context. We are grateful to the Society of Antiquaries for
readily agreeing to its reproduction.
John Barber was born on 23rd May 1914, the eldest son of the Reverend John Barber, then chaplain to
Lord William Cecil at Hatfield House. He was educated at Oakham School and in 1933 won a Warren
scholarship to St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, where he read Classics, played soccer for his college, and
won an oar for rowing and a prize for reading lessons in chapel. After graduation he spent a fruitful year at
the British School in Athens as the recipient of a travelling scholarship and then, back in England in 1937,
began his teaching career. He taught in preparatory schools until the outbreak of war, which he spent as a
captain in signals and intelligence, mainly with the Eighth Army in the Libyan Desert. In September 1946 he
returned to his old school, Oakham, first as master in charge of the junior school and subsequently, from
1959 to 1974, as housemaster of Wharflands (his old house), and finally as second master for his last two
years before retirement.
Barber’s enthusiasm for archaeology was passed on to his pupils, with highly rewarding results. Soon
after his arrival at Oakham, in collaboration with E G Bolton, headmaster of Casterton Secondary School,
Barber organised an excavation at the Roman town of Great Casterton in Rutland, about two miles north of
Stamford, the excavators being boys from both schools.
In their first season a complex of buildings was exposed, part of which had a tessellated floor. Such
widespread interest was aroused by the dig, especially at the University of Nottingham, that members of its
Department of Adult Education arranged a summer school to take over the excavation for its third season in
1950. This phase of the excavation was directed by Dr Philip Corder FSA, with the assistance of Fellows
Graham Webster, John Gillam and Maurice Barley. The villa site discovered by Barber and Bolton was
placed at the disposal of the professional archaeologists, who continued their investigations until Corder’s
death in 1960. Several site reports were published, and John Barber was elected FSA on 12th January 1956
for his original contribution to this important research; he had already been instrumental, with E T Leeds, in
facilitating rescue work on an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Glaston (Leeds & Barber 1950).
In the 1960s he took his family for a fortnight every year in August to participate in the excavation of
another Roman town, Ancaster in Lincolnshire, directed successively by Maurice Barley, Jeffrey May and
Malcolm Todd, again under the auspices of the University of Nottingham.
Publication of John Barber’s The Story of Oakham School in 1984 marked the quartercentenary of the
school’s foundation and, on his eightieth birthday in 1994, the Barber Archive Room in the new school
library was named in his honour. In addition, he published several articles in the Rutland Record, the journal
of the Rutland Local History & Record Society, details of which are included in the Bibliography at the end
of this publication.
John Barber’s commitment to the county of Rutland, its natural history, antiquarian remains and ancient
buildings, was as great as his devotion to Oakham School. A dozen silver birch trees were planted on the
south shore of Rutland Water in 1995 in recognition of his fundraising activities for the Council for the
Protection of Rural England. When the Rutland County Museum was established in 1967 he masterminded
the transfer of Oakham School’s collection, of which he was curator, to the new museum. He was a member
of the special committee set up in 1965 when the riding school became available for conversion to the
museum, and was elected Chairman of the Friends’ Executive Committee in 1969, an office which he held
until 1986, when he was appointed to the honorary position of Vice-President. He died on 8th February
1997, following a fall on black ice.
Elaine Jones & Tim Clough

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