{{short description|British academic and ancient historian (1911-1993)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Adrian Nicholas Sherwin-White | birth_date = {{birth date|1911|8|10|df=y}} | birth_place = [[Brentford]], England | death_date = {{death date and age|1993|11|1|1911|8|10|df=y}} | death_place = [[Fyfield, Oxfordshire]], [[Oxfordshire]], England | education = [[Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood|Merchant Taylors' School]]<br/>[[St John's College, Oxford|St John's College]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] | employer = St John's College, Oxford | occupation = [[History of Rome|Roman historian]]<br/>[[Naval intelligence]] officer | children = 2, including [[David Sherwin]] }}

'''Adrian Nicholas Sherwin-White''', [[Fellow of the British Academy|FBA]] (10 August 1911 – 1{{Spaces}}November 1993) was a British academic and [[ancient historian]]. He was a fellow of [[St John's College, Oxford|St John's College]], [[University of Oxford]] and President of the [[Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies]]. His most important works include a study of [[Roman citizenship]] based on his doctoral thesis, a treatment of the [[New Testament]] from the point of view of Roman law and society, and a commentary on the letters of [[Pliny the Younger]].

==Biography== Adrian Nicholas Sherwin-White was born on 10 August 1911. His father, H. N. Sherwin-White, was a [[solicitor]] employed by the [[London County Council]].<ref>{{cite book |author=A & C Black |author-link=A & C Black |title=Who Was Who |edition=KnowUK |date=January 2007 |publisher=A & C Black |location=London |chapter=Sherwin-White, Adrian Nicolas (1911-1993) }}</ref> From 1923 to 1930 he was educated at [[Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood|Merchant Taylors' School]], apart from one year in which ill health forced him to study independently at home. He won a scholarship to the School's "sister foundation" [[St John's College, Oxford|St John's College]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], where he began the ''[[Literae Humaniores]]'' course in 1930.<ref name=brunt>{{cite journal |author=P. A. Brunt |year=1995 |title=† Adrian Nicolas Sherwin-White, 1911–1993 |journal=Proceedings of the British Academy |volume=87 |pages=455&ndash;470 |url=http://britac.ac.uk/sites/default/files/87p455.pdf |accessdate=27 September 2008 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170806140501/http://britac.ac.uk/sites/default/files/87p455.pdf |archivedate=6 August 2017 }}</ref> His tutor in ancient history was [[Hugh Last]], whose interest in Roman administrative history influenced the direction of his student's later scholarship.<ref name=np>{{cite journal |author=N. P. |year=1994 |title=A. N. Sherwin-White, 1911–{{sic|1994|nolink=y}} |journal=The Journal of Roman Studies |volume=84 |pages=xi&ndash;xiv |doi=10.1017/s0075435800044725|doi-access=free }}</ref> Sherwin-White achieved [[British undergraduate degree classification#Degree classification|first-class honours]] in both sets of Oxford examinations, the preliminary [[Honour Moderations]] and the more important [[final examination|Finals]] which he sat in 1934.<ref name=brunt/>

Sherwin-White started work the same year on his doctoral thesis, on [[Roman citizenship]].<ref name=brunt/> In 1935, he was awarded the Derby Scholarship and Arnold Historical Essay Prize.<ref name=millar>{{cite news |author=Fergus Millar |author-link=Fergus Millar |title=Obituary: A. N. Sherwin-White |type =[[LexisNexis]] reprint |work=[[The Independent]] |page=17 |date=13 November 1993}}</ref><ref name=times>{{cite news |title=A.N. Sherwin-White |type =obituary; LexisNexis reprint |work=[[The Times]] |date=15 November 1993}}</ref> In 1936, he married Marie Leonora Downes. He was also selected ahead of older competitors to succeed to Last's fellowship at St John's College, despite not yet having a doctorate &ndash; this may have been on Last's recommendation.<ref name=brunt/> His thesis was submitted in 1937, and the examiners M. Cary and [[Ronald Syme|R. Syme]] commended its "maturity of judgement such as one hardly dares to expect from a young scholar".<ref name=np/> Sherwin-White declined to accept the actual doctorate, preferring to remain known as "Mr", but he revised the thesis for publication as ''The Roman Citizenship'' (1939). It came to be regarded as "a classic of modern historical writing on Rome".<ref name=brunt/>

Sherwin-White's poor eyesight kept him from active service during [[World War II]], but the President of St John's wrote to the Director of [[Naval Intelligence]] to recommend him for a post,<ref name=np/> and he was commissioned on 4 December 1941 as a Temporary [[Sub-Lieutenant]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=35387 |date=19 December 1941 |page=7183 }}</ref> He helped to edit some of the [[British Admiralty|Admiralty]]'s series of [[Naval Intelligence Handbooks|geographical handbooks]], acquiring detailed geographical knowledge that he displayed in subsequent scholarship including a 1944 article about the historical geography of [[Algeria]].<ref name=np/><ref name=times/>

Sherwin-White returned after the War to teaching at St John's, where he also served as "Keeper of the Groves" responsible for the college garden. Outside recognition came in 1956 with his election as a fellow of the [[British Academy]].<ref name=millar/><ref name=times/> He produced a school textbook, ''Ancient Rome'' (1959), as well as more advanced works including ''Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament'' (1963), identified retrospectively by the Roman historian [[Fergus Millar]] as "[t]he most stimulating and original" of his postwar works.<ref name=millar/> Arising from his studies of Roman law and administration, this indicated "his conviction of the essential historicity of the narratives in the New Testament",<ref name=times/> especially in the critique he mounted in his closing pages against "[[form criticism|form-criticism]] of the extremer sort".<ref>{{cite book |author=A. N. Sherwin-White |title=Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament |year=1963 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |isbn=0-19-825153-X |pages=186&ndash;193, quotation p. 189 }}</ref>

Sherwin-White's Oxford career was not interrupted by his family's move in 1963 to a cottage near [[Fifield, Oxfordshire|Fyfield]], [[Oxfordshire]].<ref name=millar/> The year 1966 saw the publication of a work "at least eighteen years" in the making:<ref name=np/> his historical and social commentary on the letters of [[Pliny the Younger]], the first such work ever compiled and one not yet superseded.<ref name=times/> In Millar's assessment, it "combined immense erudition, percipience and sharpness of vision with a curious slapdashness about small details";<ref name=millar/> these errors were keenly hunted down by contemporary reviewers.<ref name=np/> In the same year Sherwin-White became Reader in Ancient History. Although he was a potential choice to succeed [[Ronald Syme]] as [[Camden Professor of Ancient History]] in 1970, this role went to [[Peter Brunt]]. Sherwin-White did serve as President of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies between 1974 and 1977, and his ''Roman Foreign Policy in the East'' (1983) appeared four years into his retirement.<ref name=millar/> He died on 1 November 1993 at Fyfield, survived by his wife and two children.<ref name=millar/><ref name=times/> His son, who adopted the professional name [[David Sherwin]] (1942-2018), was a screenwriter, most famous for the script of the cult classic [[If....]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.tonbridgeconnect.org/news/deaths-obituaries/77/77-SHERWIN-WHITE-David-Nicholas |title=Sherwin-White, David |publisher= Tonbridge School |access-date=20 December 2023}}</ref> His daughter, Susan Sherwin-White, was an ancient historian (1945-2016), expert on the Greek islands and the [[Seleucid Empire]].<ref>{{ cite web |url=https://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/susan-sherwin-white |title= Susan Sherwin-White 1945-2016| publisher= Oxford: Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents | access-date=20 December 2023 }}</ref>

==Publications==

===Books=== * ''The Roman Citizenship'' (Oxford, 1939, revised 1973). * ''Ancient Rome'' (London, 1959, revised 1978). * ''Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament'' (Oxford, 1963, based on the [[Sarum Lectures]] for 1960&ndash;1961). * ''[[The Letters of Pliny]]: A Historical and Social Commentary'' (Oxford, 1966). * ''Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome'' (Cambridge, 1967, based on the J. H. Gray lectures for 1966). * ''Fifty Letters of Pliny'' (London, 1967, revised 1969). * ''Roman Foreign Policy in the East'' (Norman, 1984).

===Selected articles=== * "Geographical Factors in Roman Algeria". ''The Journal of Roman Studies'' 34 (1944): 1&ndash;10. * "Violence in Roman Politics". ''The Journal of Roman Studies'' 46 (1956): 1&ndash;9. * Review of [[Ronald Syme|R. Syme]], ''Tacitus''. ''The Journal of Roman Studies'' 49 (1959): 140&ndash;146. * "The Roman Citizenship: A Survey of Its Development into a World Franchise". ''[[Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt]]'' 1.2 (1972): 23&ndash;58.

==References== {{reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sherwin-White, Adrian Nicholas}} [[Category:1911 births]] [[Category:1993 deaths]] [[Category:Alumni of St John's College, Oxford]] [[Category:British intelligence operatives]] [[Category:English classical scholars]] [[Category:Fellows of St John's College, Oxford]] [[Category:Historians of antiquity]] [[Category:People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood]] [[Category:Royal Navy officers]] [[Category:20th-century English historians]] [[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]]