J. B. Trapp

Joseph Burney Trapp CBE FBA FSA (16 July 1925 – 13 July 2005) was the director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition at London University from 1976 to 1990.

Life Trapp was born in Carterton, New Zealand, on 16 July 1925, and was educated at Dannevirke School. He graduated MA from Victoria University College in Wellington, New Zealand in 1947. He began his career as an academic at that institution in 1950, after a spell working at the Alexander Turnbull Library from 1946 to 1950.

In 1951, he emigrated to the United Kingdom, where he worked first at Reading University and then, from 1953 at the Warburg Institute, London University. At the Warburg he was assistant librarian (1953-1966) and librarian (1966-1976), before succeeding Ernst Gombrich as director (1976-1990).

Trapp married Elayne Falla, a fellow Victoria University alumni, in 1953 in England. He died in London on 14 July 2005, survived by Elayne, their two sons and five grandchildren. His father-in-law was Sir Robert Falla.

His most enduring work is his critical edition of The Apology of Sir Thomas More, published in 1979 as part of the Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More. In the same year he was appointed a CBE.