Sir Edgar John Forsdyke KCB (12 September 1883 – 3 December 1979) was Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum from 1936 to 1950.
He served in the Royal Field Artillery in the British military as a captain between 1914 and 1919 in France, Macedonia, and Spain.
After serving as Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum from 1932 to 1936, he was appointed Director and Principal Librarian in 1936.
As a result the museum was able to quickly begin relocating selected items on 24 August 1939, (a mere day after the Home Secretary advised them to do so), to secure basements, country houses, Aldwych Underground station, the National Library of Wales and Westwood Quarry in Wiltshire.
[4] Following the end of the war, Forsdyke invested resources in microfilming the museum’s collection, both to make it available to a wider scholarly community and as a preservation tool.