1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bury, John Bagnell

BURY, JOHN BAGNELL (1861–), British historian, was born on the 16th of October 1861, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was elected to a fellowship in 1885. A fine Greek scholar, he edited Pindar’s Nemean and Isthmian Odes; but he devoted himself chiefly to the study of history, and was chosen professor of modern history at Dublin in 1893, becoming regius professor of Greek in 1898. He resigned both positions in 1902, when he was elected regius professor of modern history in the university of Cambridge. His historical work was mainly concerned with the later Roman empire, and his edition of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, with a masterly introduction and valuable notes (1896–1900), is the standard text of this history. He also wrote a History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great (1900); History of the Later Roman Empire, 395–800 (1889); History of the Roman Empire 27 B.C.–180 A.D. (1893); Life of St Patrick and his Place in History (1905), &c. He was elected a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and received honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Durham.