In Memorium:  It is with saddened hearts and deep regret that we must inform the public of the loss of one of our own.

April 12 – London.
Mr. Percival Wexley, 28, a lecturer in Classical Studies at King’s College London and a rising member of the National Explorers Society, died last week in a tragic diving accident off the Dalmatian coast. His death was attributed to his engaging in a single dive against his doctor’s orders, due to an existing pulmonary weakness. 

Mr. Wexley had been assisting in a field survey under the patronage of Sir Eldridge Smythe when the incident occurred. He was widely regarded as a promising scholar and had recently contributed to classification efforts surrounding submerged ruins in the Adriatic.

His official Society profile is reprinted here in honor of his contributions to the field.

Percival Wexley

Member, National Explorers Society
Lecturer in Classical Studies, King’s College London

Percival Wexley is a British archaeologist and classicist currently serving as a lecturer in Classical Studies at King’s College London, where he focuses on early Mediterranean civilizations and the transmission of Hellenistic cultural forms. A member in good standing of the National Explorers Society, Mr. Wexley is known for his precision in cataloguing and his growing contributions to field methodology involving submerged architectural sites.

Born in 1909 and raised in a convalescent household due to longstanding pleuritic inflammation, Wexley spent much of his youth bedridden, developing an insatiable appetite for classical texts and archaeological maps. Against modest expectations, he earned a first-class degree from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1931, followed by a doctoral fellowship focusing on early Adriatic coastal settlements.

Since joining the Society, he has worked in coordination with several noted field directors and most recently accompanied Sir Eldridge Smythe as part of an underwater survey team near the Dalmatian coast. While not known for initiating expeditions himself, Wexley has appeared, often quietly, at numerous pivotal discoveries over the past five years. His colleagues describe him as “methodical, observant, and frequently the first to spot anomalies in stratigraphic reports.”

His ongoing work at King’s includes supervising graduate research into the transshipment of cult statuary from Asia Minor to the western Greek colonies and advising on the reconstruction of archaic sanctuary zones through epigraphic evidence.