File 2 - Correspondence-Sikes (1911-1925)

Edward Ernest Sikes was born on the 26th April, 1867, in Kent, and educated at Aldenham School. At the end of 1885, he was awarded a scholarship at St John’s College, where he would also go on to win a Brown Medal and achieve first place in the First Class in Part I of the Classical Tripos of 1889. He later went out to study at the British School at Athens, before being elected to a Fellowship in 1891.
Sikes’ career at St John’s continued when the next year he was awarded the title of Assistant Lecturer; and, then, Lecturer, a position which he held from 1894 to 1938. He became a Tutor in 1900, a task which he undertook for the next twenty-five years.
When not teaching, Sikes was also a prolific author, publishing works such as Roman Poetry, The Greek View of Poetry, and a translation of Hero and Leander. He was also known to enjoy football, cricket, and music; Sikes was a Chairman of the Smoking Concerts, and President of the musical society.
Sikes remained at St John’s for almost all of the rest of his life, with the exclusion of a brief tenure as a Visiting Professor at Harvard University. He died at Bournemouth, on the 5th February 1940.

Obituary in the Eagle: Vol. 52, Mich 1941, p. 43.
Accessible online at: https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Eagle/Eagle%20Volumes/1940s/1942/Eagle_1941_Michaelmas.pdf