J. C. (John Clarke) Stobart

Born in Dorset in 1878, J. C. Stobart was a British classical scholar who studied at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He later taught, lectured at Cambridge, and served as one of His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools.

His career moved between education, public service, and broadcasting. After work connected with government during and after the First World War, he joined the BBC in 1925 as its first Director of Education. He is remembered for helping develop educational and cultural programming, including Children's Hour, and for his popular New Year's Eve broadcast, The Grand Good-night.

Stobart is still best known to many readers for books such as The Glory That Was Greece and The Grandeur That Was Rome. Those works aimed to be both scholarly and welcoming, using clear writing and illustrations to open up classical civilization to a wide audience. He died in 1933.