Subserie RAS BHA/2/1 - 1979 - Tim H. Barrett

The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Sir Henry Thomas Colebrooke on the 15th March 1823. It received its Royal Charter from King George IV on the 11th August 1824 'for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to Asia'. It continues as a forum for those who are interested in the languages, cultures and history of Asia to meet and exchange ideas.

Major J.E. Barwis-Holliday was interested in the Far East. He was the British delegate at the eighth congress of the International Organisation for the Industrial, Scientific and Cultural Advancement in Japan. He owned properties in Sussex and Cumberland. He was a member to the Royal Asiatic Society from 1970 until his death in 1983 and served on the Society's Council. He endowed the Barwis-Holliday Award while he was alive with further money bequeathed on his death.

T. H. Barrett has been publishing on China since 1972, and is now Professor Emeritus of East Asian History, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Though he has mainly worked on the history of religion in East Asia, he has also long taken an interest in the development of the study of China in Britain, and has published on this topic also. Professor Barrett has been closely involved in organisations concerned with the furtherance of Chinese Studies, taking on, in the past, the chairmanship of the Universities’ China Committee in London and chairing the Asian Studies panels in two national Research Exercises. He has written for the London Review of Books, The Independent, and other publications, and contributed frequently to the radio programme ‘In Our Time’ and to other media.