Graham Webster

Graham Webster, engineer and archaeologist: born Stamford, Lincolnshire 31 May 1913; FSA 1947; Lecturer in Romano-British Archaeology, then Senior Lecturer, then Reader, Extra-Mural Department, Birmingham University 1954-80; President, Shropshire Archaeological Society 1975-2001; OBE 1982; twice married (two sons); died Swindon, Wiltshire 21 May 2001.

Graham Webster, engineer and archaeologist: born Stamford, Lincolnshire 31 May 1913; FSA 1947; Lecturer in Romano-British Archaeology, then Senior Lecturer, then Reader, Extra-Mural Department, Birmingham University 1954-80; President, Shropshire Archaeological Society 1975-2001; OBE 1982; twice married (two sons); died Swindon, Wiltshire 21 May 2001.

Graham Webster was one of the last great polymaths of British Archaeology, in the true Victorian tradition of the word.

An expert in the field of the Roman army, Webster can also lay a claim to have been one of the modern founders of the study of Roman pottery in Britain and to have done pioneering studies in many of the more obscure areas of Romano-British studies, ranging from his early work on the use of coal in Roman Britain through to his last major work, on Romano-Celtic religion. However, his first training and work came in the field of engineering when, after matriculating at Stamford School, he rejected the proffered options of Army, colonial service, bank or farm to become an articled pupil to the City Engineer of Peterborough before progressing to become a chartered civil engineer, initially at Bromley, Kent.

After the Second World War, which he partly spent designing airfields in Scotland, he managed to break out from his career path when, through his part-time involvement in excavations in Canterbury and Lincoln, he was able to win the post of first full-time Curator of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. This also involved a certain amount of excavation in addition to his formal curatorial duties and thus it was that he set about uncovering much of the archaeology of the fortress of the Twentieth Legion underlying Chester, and reorganising the museum to reflect the wealth of information on the Roman army that it held.

The lack of a formal collection meant that a new and different approach was called for: a didactic display that used the material to demonstrate practical details of Roman military life in their fortress. Webster's model of the Roman fortress and a life-size replica of a Roman legionary in full armour stick in the mind of any who have visited the gallery. The latter wore armour replicated by H. Russell-Robinson of the Royal Armouries, who thereby became instrumental in unravelling the secrets of segmented Roman armour.

The work that Webster carried out in researching the new gallery resulted in first a booklet and, by 1969, a volume on the Roman army (The Roman Army) that remains, in its third edition, a standard text book on the subject. The largest part of the museum's collection, its Roman inscriptions, formed the basis for another catalogue, A Short Guide to the Roman Inscriptions and Sculptured Stones in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester (1950) that was a pioneer in its field. Whilst working at the Grosvenor, Webster formed links with Donald Atkinson at Manchester University where he studied for his MA, a qualification that gave him the academic grounding for his new profession.

Webster's interest in the Roman army continued to blossom and led to a PhD on military activity along the Fosse Way, the Roman road running roughly from the Severn Estuary to Lincoln. This, he believed, betrayed evidence for a major change in Roman strategy during the conquest of the island by the Emperor Claudius. His interpretation of the archaeological evidence of the sites along this road corridor led him to assert that the Romans had not intended to conquer the whole of the island but instead only wished to keep within lowland Britain (i.e. to the east of this line). The theory, first published as "The Roman Military Advance Under Ostorius Scapula" in The Archaeological Journal in 1960, was elaborated in four books over the next two decades giving a detailed, and highly readable account, of the conquest of Britain: The Roman Conquest of Britain (with Donald Dudley, 1965), Boudicca (1978), The Roman Invasion of Britain (1980) and Rome Against Caratacus (1981).

His theory initially gained wide acceptance but it is now fair to say that it is not generally accepted as having been a deliberate Roman policy, although Webster was surely correct to identify the Fosse line as an initial objective of the conquest period. Unusually for the time, his work on the Fosse Way led him to close study of the German frontiers and collaboration with colleagues there. His interest was rewarded with election to the Deutschen Archeologischen Institute in 1965 and he was for many years an important contributor to the Limes Kongress that studied the archaeological evidence for frontiers throughout the Empire.

In 1953, Webster was invited to collaborate with Dame Kathleen Kenyon in running a training excavation on a Roman town house at Wroxeter Roman City in Shropshire. The next year, he was invited by Donald Dudley to become a lecturer in Romano-British Archaeology in the Extra-Mural Department at Birmingham University, where he remained for the rest of his working life. This ushered in perhaps the most important phase of his life: the training of a whole generation of British archaeologists.

The small-scale excavation of the town house only lasted two years but in 1955 Webster transferred to the neighbouring site of Wroxeter's town baths, recently acquired by the state and then being consolidated by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, the predecessor of English Heritage. For the next 30 years he ran a training excavation here, unravelling the complex genesis of the abandoned Roman city and its underlying fortress.

His associates here included such luminaries as Charles Daniels, Anthony Barrett and Philip Barker, the latter graduating to his own part of the Wroxeter baths site in 1966. Much was made of the contrasts between their two differing styles of excavation, and it was often assumed that there was a degree of personal animosity between the two. This was not the case: their approaches were certainly different but they remained personal friends until Webster's illness and Barker's failing health parted them.

Webster's other major excavations, also run as training schools, included the rescue investigation of the invasion period fort at Waddon Hill, Dorset, the long-term excavation of the villa at Barnsley Park, Gloucestershire, and investigations at Great Casterton in Rutland. These training schools, along with that at Wroxeter, were famed for their intensity, good humour, and vocational strengths. In addition to these, Webster's extra-mural teaching lead to wide-ranging contacts throughout the West Midlands that inspired a legion of unpaid, but highly dedicated, archaeologists investigating sites throughout the region. Much of this information was pulled together in his study of the local tribe, The Cornovii, published in 1975. It remains a key text for the area.

His other major interests may be gathered in studying his archaeological biography, Archaeologist at Large, published in 1991 by Batsford, for whom he had acted as Archaeological Editor for many years. They range from a brief note on the Cheshire Cat, through pottery studies (one of Webster's great loves ­ he was intensely proud of having pioneered the standard presentation of vessels in pottery reports), religion, Roman small towns and Roman material culture. He was a conventional archaeologist through and through, and it can be said that modern archaeologists were latterly critical of some aspects of his reasoning, but of the quality of his work there is no doubt: there are very few areas of Roman Britain where he did not have an impact.

The latter half of his life was spent with Diana Bonakis, an entirely happy and fulfilling relationship that transformed Graham Webster. Diana often injected a welcome note of humour to the training excavations, while her artistic skills were usefully employed in recording the many small finds that were discovered and recording the more complex of the excavation features. Towards the end, it was Diana's devoted care that enabled Graham to continue to live as normal a life as possible in their own house.

Roger White