Charles Robert Cecil Augustine Allberry (9 November 1911 – 3 April 1943) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 Egyptologist

Egyptology

Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”...

 and Coptic

Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...

 scholar. A friend of novelist CP Snow, Allberry was the model for Roy Calvert in Snow's novel, The Light and the Dark

The Light and the Dark

The Light and the Dark is the fourth novel in C.P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers series. Set in England in the lead-up to and during World War II, it portrays Lewis Eliot's friendship with the gifted scholar and remarkable individual Roy Calvert, and Calvert's inner turmoil and quest for meaning in...

.

Allberry attended St Dunstan's College

St Dunstan's College

St Dunstan's College is a co-educational independent school in London, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, and was an all-boys establishment until 1994...

, Catford

Catford

Catford is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-Architecture:...

 and Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...

, and become a fellow of Christ's in 1935.

Allberry translated Manichaean

Manichaeism

Manichaeism in Modern Persian Āyin e Māni; ) was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived...

 manuscripts, and is particularly known for translating and editing the first edition of A Manichean Psalm-Book, Part II, in 1938. He also compiled a Coptic dictionary, unfinished at his death. He served as editor of the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology or JEA is a scientific journal containing scholarly articles and reviews of recent books of importance to Egyptology....

(from 1939).

During World War II, he joined the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 and died in action in Nedeweert, Holland, 3 April 1943.

He was married to Patricia Katherine Grace Sandbach.

Sources

• CA Charles Robert Cecil Augustine Allberry (1911-43), Egyptologist, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge
• Cambridge Universities Libraries Information Bulletin 47, 2000
• Mani and Manichaeism in the BPH, Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, J.R. Ritman Library
• Snow P (2006) C. P. Snow Christ's College Magazine 231, 67–9