Dr Peter Johnson (1930-2016)

Dr Peter Johnson (1961)

Pembroke is saddened to announce the death of Dr Peter Johnson (1961), Fellow in Modern and Medieval Languages. Dr Johnson's funeral will be held in Pembroke College Chapel at 11am on Friday 6 January 2017.

Professor Chris Young (1987), who was taught by Dr Johnson and later succeeded him as Pembroke's Director of Studies in Modern and Medieval Languages, commented that, "Peter was known and loved for his joie de vivre, and widely respected and influential both as a scholar and a person across the UK and Germany. He will be greatly missed."

Dr Johnson's research focused on medieval German and the history of German language. His publications included Approaches to Wolfram von Eschenbach (with D H Green, 1978), Die hofische Literatur der Blutezeit (1999) and many articles on medieval lyric and courtly romance. In 1951, Dr Johnson graduated with a BA in German and French from King's College Durham (now the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne). After studying for a doctorate at Christian Albrecht's University in Kiel, West Germany, he spent three years as a lecturer at Cardiff University, before moving to Cambridge in 1959 to take up an Assistant Lectureship. He was subsequently appointed to a full lectureship, and held the position of Head of Department of Other Languages between 1982 and 1992. In 1994 he was appointed a Reader, which he held for three years before retiring in 1997. Made a Member of Pembroke in 1959, Dr Johnson was admitted as a Fellow in 1961.

Image: Dr Peter Johnson, taken in 1961 by Ian Fleming (1956).