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John Chadwick (21 May 1920 – 24 November 1998) was an English
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 linguist
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 and classical
Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean World; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity ....
 scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B
Linear B

Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean language, an early form of Greek language. It predated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean Greece civilization....
, along with Michael Ventris
Michael Ventris

Michael George Francis Ventris was an England architect and classical scholar who, along with John Chadwick, was responsible for the decipherment of Linear B....
.

Early life and education
He was born in East Sheen, London and educated at St Paul's School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Corpus Christi College is a College of the University of Cambridge. It is notable for being the only college to have been founded by Cambridge townspeople, having been founded in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary....
, and he served as an officer the Royal Navy
Royal Navy

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British Armed Forces . From the mid-18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s....
's Special Branch during the Second World War.

After the war he was on the staff of the Oxford Classical Dictionary
Oxford Classical Dictionary

The Oxford Classical Dictionary is the standard one-volume encyclopedia in English language of topics relating to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
 before beginning a Classics lectureship at Cambridge in 1952.






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John Chadwick (21 May 1920 – 24 November 1998) was an English
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 linguist
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
 and classical
Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean World; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity ....
 scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B
Linear B

Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean language, an early form of Greek language. It predated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean Greece civilization....
, along with Michael Ventris
Michael Ventris

Michael George Francis Ventris was an England architect and classical scholar who, along with John Chadwick, was responsible for the decipherment of Linear B....
.

Early life and education


He was born in East Sheen, London and educated at St Paul's School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Corpus Christi College is a College of the University of Cambridge. It is notable for being the only college to have been founded by Cambridge townspeople, having been founded in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary....
, and he served as an officer the Royal Navy
Royal Navy

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British Armed Forces . From the mid-18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s....
's Special Branch during the Second World War.

After the war he was on the staff of the Oxford Classical Dictionary
Oxford Classical Dictionary

The Oxford Classical Dictionary is the standard one-volume encyclopedia in English language of topics relating to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
 before beginning a Classics lectureship at Cambridge in 1952. That year he began working with Ventris on the progressive decipherment of Linear B, the two writing Documents in Mycenean Greek in 1956 following a controversial first paper three years earlier. Chadwick's philological
Philology

Philology, derived from the Greek language considers both morphology and Meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies....
 skills were applied to Ventris' initial theory that Linear B was an early form of Greek rather than another Mediterranean language.

After Ventris' death Chadwick became the figurehead of the Linear B work, writing the accessible popular book The Decipherment of Linear B in 1958 and revising Documents in Mycenean Greek in 1978.

He retired in 1984, by which time he had become the fourth (and last) Perceval Maitland Laurence
Perceval Maitland Laurence

Sir Perceval Maitland Laurence was an English people classical scholar, judge in South Africa and a benefactor of the University of Cambridge....
 Reader in Classics at Cambridge. He continued his scholarship until his death, being an active member of several prestigious international societies and writing numerous popular and academic articles.

Family


He married Joan Hill in 1947 and they had one son.

Publications


See also


  • Linear B
    Linear B

    Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean language, an early form of Greek language. It predated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean Greece civilization....
    , Mycenaean Greek
    Mycenaean language

    Mycenaean is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland and on Crete in the Mycenaean period, before the Dorian invasion....
    , Mycenaean Greece
    Mycenaean Greece

    Mycenaean Greece is a cultural period of ancient Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece....
  • Michael Ventris
    Michael Ventris

    Michael George Francis Ventris was an England architect and classical scholar who, along with John Chadwick, was responsible for the decipherment of Linear B....