Emeritus Professor Eric Barff Birley, M.B.E., M.A.,Dr.Phil.,D.Litt., F.B.A., Hon.F.S.A.Scot.

The Society lost its second most senior Fellow when Eric Birley died on 20 October 1995, sixty-four years after his election.

He was born in Eccles, Lancashire, on 12 January 1906 and educated at Clifton College and Brasenose, Oxford, where he obtained a first in Greats and was much influenced by R. G. Collingwood, F.S.A. While still an undergraduate Birley excavated on Hadrian's Wall under the direction of F. G. Simpson and, after graduation, following a brief period working for this Society observing construction work in the City of London, he returned to Durham as director of the Durham University Excavation Committee and thereafter always lived and worked in the Wall area. Excavation at Birdoswald in 1929 uncovered two inscriptions (RIB 1909 and 1912), and Birley's elucidation of these, which led to a re-dating of the Wall periods, formed the basis of all subsequent work on the chronology of Hadrian's Wall. In 1931 he was appointed lecturer at Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, part of Durham University, where, alongside his close colleague, Ian Richmond, P.S.A, he strengthened his knowledge of Samian pottery, epigraphy and the Roman Army through frequent visits to Germany and Switzerland, gaining a European reputation in the process. Birley excavated at Vindolanda from 1930-5 and also on the civil settlement at Housesteads from 1931-6. He and Richmond then embarked on a re-examination of Corbridge which was to last until 1973; the late John Gillam, F.S.A., replaced Richmond as director of excavations on the latter's translation to Oxford in 1957. Birley spent the war in Military Intelligence Research, and ended his service as chief of the German Military Document Section with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Post-war, he often suffered bouts of ill-health and was not involved in excavation, except at Corbridge. He was appointed vice-master of Hatfield College at Durham University in 1947, succeeding as master in 1949 until 1956, when the School of Archaeology was founded and he was awarded a personal chair in Romano-British archaeology, from which he retired as professor emeritus in 1971. Early in his career, inspired by his contacts with European colleagues, Birley had conceived the idea of a Congress of Roman Frontier Studies. Its inauguration was postponed by the outbreak of war but its first meeting was held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1949, since when sixteen meetings have been held, the latest in 1995 in The Netherlands. He was a regular contributor to journals at home and abroad, and many of his most important articles were collected in the volume The Roman Army Papers 1929-1986 (1988). Birley was pre-eminent as a teacher, not only of graduates, though a goodly number of these now occupy key positions. The bulk of his personal library was lodged in the archaeology department at Durham and was open to all. Although, in Who's Who he gave his only hobby as archaeology, he was in fact a skilful composer of light verse and was sufficiently proud of this accomplishment to list Fifty-One Ballades (1980) among his publications. Felicitously, Birley's two sons share his enthusiasm for archaeology, and he paid one of his rare visits to Burlington House on the evening of 9 January 1969 to see both Anthony and Robin elected Fellows. They were born at Chesterholm, Birley's first house in Northumberland, which is now a museum and research centre for the Vindolanda Trust, and his ashes are buried in the garden there.