John Hanbury Angus Sparrow OBE (13 November 1906 – 24 January 1992) was an English academic, barrister, book-collector, and Warden of All Souls College, Oxford, from 1952 to 1977.
Sparrow briefly attended the junior house of Wolverhampton Grammar School, but was soon moved to Brockhurst at Church Stretton in Shropshire as a boarder.
"[1] Sparrow was homosexual,[2] and ironically, became most known beyond Oxford for an article he wrote in 1962 for the literary magazine Encounter on Lady Chatterley's Lover, following the obscenity trial.
Sparrow wrote that he found the novel "extremely distasteful", and also argued that anal intercourse formed an approved part of Lawrence's "sexual creed".
[4][5] Sparrow is the subject of two biographies: He published more than fifty books and essays on topics including epigraphy, painting, and Latin and English poetry.