It is with great sorrow that we report the death in November 2020 of Erik Fudge, who served as the editor of the Journal of Linguistics from 1979 to 1984. This follows close on the passing of the founding editor, John Lyons, in March of the same year and of Lyons’ successor as editor, Frank Palmer, in November 2019. Between them, this eminent trio of British linguists, together with Palmer’s co-editor Peter Matthews, edited JL for close on twenty years and helped to build its reputation as one of the discipline’s leading international outlets. Their specialist fields were rather different. Lyons was a world-renowned semanticist, whose two-volume Semantics (CUP, 1977) is still cited to this day. He was the author of one of the leading textbooks of the day Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (CUP, 1968) and contributed the volume Chomsky to the Fontana Modern Masters series (3rd edn. 1991). Palmer also worked on semantics, most notably in his study of Mood and Modality (CUP, 1986), but in addition addressed issues at the grammar–semantics interface, for example in Grammatical Roles and Relations (CUP, 2008), as well conducting fieldwork on the languages of Ethiopia. Fudge, by contrast, was a phonologist, the author of numerous specialist articles and the volume English Word Stress (Allen & Unwin, 1984). His editorial skills are further to be seen in his compilation Phonology: Selected Readings (Penguin Books, 1973) and in his service as section editor for Phonology in the first edition of Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Pergamon Press, 1993) and for Language and Religion in the second edition (Elsevier, 2006). In the early days, as noted by Hudson (2009: 11), editors took a more active role, inviting contributions and helping to shape the profile of the journal, rather than receiving and adjudicating between submitted articles which are independently refereed, as is the modern practice. It is to their credit therefore that from the very start, under their guidance JL has not been associated either with a specific theoretical perspective or with a particular sub-domain of linguistic research.Footnote ^*

On behalf of current and past editors, Nigel Vincent, assistant editor to Erik Fudge together with Paul Werth (d. 1995) and editor from 1984 to 1994