John Burnet

John Burnet, FBA (; 9 December 1863 – 26 May 1928) was a Scottish classicist. He was born in Edinburgh and died in St Andrews. Life and work Burnet was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he obtained first-class honours in Classical Moderations (Greek and Latin) in 1885 and in Literae Humaniores ('Greats', a combination of philosophy and ancient history) in 1887. In the course of his undergraduate academic career at Oxford he won the Taylorian Scholarship in French (1885) and came second for the Boden Sanskrit Scholarship (1884) After taking his degree in 1887 Burnet became an assistant to Lewis Campbell at the University of St. Andrews. He was a master at Harrow School in 1888. From 1890 to 1915, he was a Fellow at Merton College, Oxford; and from 1892 to 1926 a professor of Greek at St Andrews. For a term prior to his St Andrews professorship, he served as Interim Professor of Humanity (Latin) at the University of Edinburgh. He became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1916. In 1909, Burnet was offered, but did not accept, the Chair of Greek at Harvard University. He was Sather Professor in Classical Literature, California, 1925. In 1894, he married Mary Farmer, the daughter of John Farmer, who wrote the Preface for a collection of essays published after his death, Essays and Addresses.