He is best known for his career long association with the British Museum, serving with the Department of Ancient Egypt from 1951 to 1988, including 14 years as Keeper.
After the end of the war he attended Exeter College, Oxford and there studied under Sir Alan Gardiner and Battiscombe Gunn, two of the most significant Egyptologists of the twentieth century.
In 1951 he took a position in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum in London and there worked on a number of specialised research projects, focusing on translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs and publishing extensively on a wide variety of topics.
In 1974 he replaced Edwards as Keeper of Ancient Egypt and ran the department successfully until 1988, redeveloping the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery to acclaim in 1981.
In retirement he continued to perform research and publish, most notably with a biography of Howard Carter in 1992 and held a number of scholarly positions including the chairmanship of the Freud Museum.