Career
These contributions were reprinted in a posthumous collection edited by his former student George Michell. John Burton-Page was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. Though he enrolled as a horn player at the Royal College of Music, his study was interrupted by World World War World War II He served in India and Burma, ending the war as a Captain in the 1st King George V"s Own Gurkha Rifles.
Having become fluent in Hindi and Nepali, on return to England he entered as a mature student at Wadham College, Oxford to study Sanskrit.
After graduating in 1950 he went to the School of Oriental and African Studies as a Temporary Lecturer in Nepali. He stayed at SOAS for over three decades, later as a Lecturer and Reader in Hindi, becoming increasingly interested in Indo-Islamic history and architecture.
His final post was as Reader in the Art & Archaeology of South Asia, and he continued to write and teach for some years after his formal retirement.