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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



excavation work, at first in the ruins of Canterbury 

 during the Blitz, where bombing was revealing 

 vestiges of the Roman city. His long association with 

 ceramic studies likewise began here where he 

 catalogued the samian ware in the museum. After 

 war service with the Air Ministry in Scotland, 

 constructing aerodromes (and also, incidentally, 

 excavating a late Bronze Age urnfield, a rare 

 excursion into prehistoric archaeology), he turned 

 to Roman military archaeology, making over the 

 years a unique contribution to the subject. In 1946, 

 in a relatively small excavation at Lincoln, he 

 discovered for the first time parts of the remains of 

 the Roman legionary fortress. It was at Lincoln that 

 he met Ian (later Professor Sir Ian) Richmond who 

 was so impressed by him that he was engaged to 

 work at the Roman forts at Newstead in Scotland 

 and Hod Hill in Dorset. Recognition of his status 

 within the subject was marked by his election in 

 1947 to the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries 

 of London. 



In 1948 he was appointed to the first full-time 

 curatorship of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester 

 where the Roman Gallery is now named after him. 

 He set about reorganising the internationally 

 important collection of sculptures and inscriptions 

 that had for many years been rather neglected. He 

 was to record that he 'not only transformed the 

 museum but excavated parts of the legionary 

 fortress every year'. He involved the local 

 community as much as possible and with the aid of 

 models of the fortress and of Roman soldiers he 

 attempted to present as good an impression as 

 possible of life in Roman times. It was at Chester 

 that he wrote two important booklets. The first was 

 A Short Guide to the Roman Inscriptions and 

 Sculptured Stones in the Grosvenor Museum, 

 Chester (1950), appearing fifteen years before the 

 national corpus of inscriptions was published. The 

 second, The Roman Army, (1956) was the genesis 

 of his most significant general work, The Roman 

 Imperial Army This book did not appear until 1969, 

 but as has been recently stated by Professor John 

 Wilkes, it was a major milestone in Roman 

 archaeology, the first serious study in English of 

 this important subject, which went through four 

 editions and remains in print to this day. 



He found time to work for an MA at Manchester 

 University under his friend, Donald Atkinson, 

 Professor of Ancient History, and he was to follow 

 Atkinson as excavator of the Roman civitas capital 

 ofWroxeter, Shropshire. At this time too he became 

 an inspirational extra-mural teacher both in the 



classroom and in the field, starting with the Field 

 School he ran with Philip Corder at Great 

 Casterton, Rutland. 



In 1954 he became Extra-Mural Tutor in 

 Archaeology at Birmingham University, eventually 

 rising by the time of his retirement in 1980 to 

 Reader in Romano-British Archaeology. During his 

 years at Birmingham he carried out a major project 

 on the Fosse Way frontier which resulted in the 

 award of a PhD which was published as 'The 

 Roman military advance under Ostorius Scapula' 

 in the Archaeological Journal ( 1 960) . The university 

 provided facilities for his excavations including the 

 fort atWaddon Hill, Dorset and the villa at Barnsley 

 Park, Gloucestershire. At the latter he met Diana 

 Bonakis, an archaeological illustrator and writer, 

 who came to work with her first husband, the BBC 

 producer and archaeological writer and broadcaster, 

 Leonard Cottrell.The pair separated and Graham 

 married Diana, in what was to become a long and 

 happy partnership. 



His work at Barnsley Park (1961-79) provided 

 the first-hand background and evidence required 

 in his timely rethinking of the place of the farming 

 villa in the Romano-British landscape and economy, 

 best expressed in such seminal papers as The Future 

 of Villa Studies (1969). To many, Graham's fame 

 will rest in large part on the great series of summer 

 excavations at Wroxeter which he initiated as a 

 training school over thirty annual seasons (1955- 

 85). Thousands of students passed through his 

 hands and they, both as professional and amateur 

 practitioners, owe him a considerable debt. These 

 excavations are at last being fully published, the first 

 volume written by him and edited by Peter Ellis 

 came out in December 2000 and the second volume 

 is currently in the press. He not only cast a great 

 deal of light on the Roman town but for the first 

 time sampled the deeply stratified layers of the 

 fortress. It was at Wroxeter also, that he engaged in 

 a fruitful collaboration with another great excavator, 

 Philip Barker, and they remained close friends for 

 the rest of their lives. 



Graham's interest in the early years of Roman 

 Britain led to the publication with Donald Dudley 

 of The Rebellion ofBoudica (1962) and The Roman 

 Conquest of Britain (1965). These later developed 

 into what has become the classic account of the 

 subject, Boudica (1978), The Roman Invasion of 

 Britain (1980) and Rome Against Caratacus (1981). 

 Later he was to take a particular interest in Romano- 

 Celtic religion and his book, The British Celts and 

 their Gods under Rome (1986) shows his empathy 



