Education:
B.A. Dalhousie U., 1937 (hons.); B.A. Oxford, 1940 (Rhodes Scholar); M.A., 1942; Ph.D. Fordham U., 1960.
Dissertation:
"The Divinity of Julius Caesar in the Writings of Cicero" (Fordham, 1960).
Professional Experience:
Actng. lctr. class. & Germ., Memorial U. of Newfoundland, 1942-7; asso. prof, class., 1947-59; prof. 1959-82; head dept., 1949-74.
Publications:
"Sense and Punctuation at Terence, Adelphoe 141-147," with R.J. Clark, RhM 129 (1986) 260-6.
Notes:
John B. Ashley founded, and for forty years developed, the Department of Classics at Memorial University of Newfoundland, in St. John's where he was born and raised. A precocious student, he began teaching at Memorial in 1933, at the age of 18. Having graduated from Dalhousie and having won the Governor General's Medal, he went on to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He returned to St. John's for good in 1943. Although he recruited and encouraged colleagues who were active in the publication of their research, his own first love was teaching, at which he excelled. He was a most accomplished Latinist, and particularly well versed in the works of the Latin fathers of the Church of which he was a life-long member. He is best remembered as a teacher who, on his retirement, was named professor emeritus, only the seventh person to receive that honor at Memorial.
Sources:
Colleagues at Memorial University; DAS 8:19.