Harry Pirie-Gordon and the Palestine Guide-Books

Gill, D. W. J. 2013. "Harry Pirie-Gordon and the Palestine Guide Books." Public Archaeology 11: 169-78.

Abstract
Harry Pirie-Gordon (1883–1969) was responsible for the preparation of a series of guidebooks published by the Palestine News immediately after the First World War. The information had been prepared for the British attack on Palestine. Pirie-Gordon first went to Syria in 1908 ostensibly to study Crusader castles. He took part in the survey of the Syrian coast around Alexandretta and worked as a foreign correspondent for The Times. Pirie-Gordon was commissioned in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and initially worked through the Arab Bureau in Cairo. After a spell in Salonica, he was commissioned in the Army, returned to Cairo, and took responsibility for the publication of the Palestine News for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Allenby’s campaign in Palestine drew on the developing technology of aerial photography to prepare accurate maps of troop dispositions.

[DOI]

We Will Remember Them

It is the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Seven former students of the BSA were killed: two at Gallipoli and five on the Western Front.

Stanley Casson served on the Western Front in the East Lancashire Regiment; he was wounded in May 1915. In 1916 he joined the General Staff in Salonica and served on the Allied Control Commission in Thessaly (1917). At the end of the war he served in Constantinople and Turkestan until he was demobilised in 1919. He was Assistant Director of the BSA under Alan Wace (1920-22), and Reader in Classical Archaeology at Oxford. He re-enlisted in the Intelligence Corps at the outbreak of the Second World War and served in Holland and Greece rising to the rank of Lt.-Colonel. He was killed on active service in a flying accident on 17 April 1944 and was buried in Newquay.

Intelligence Gathering in the First World War

Many of the former BSA students helped to gather intelligence during the First World War (see Harry Pirie-Gordon). But other archaeological institutes were involved in similar activities.

In late November 1916 the directors of the German and Austrian archaeological institutes were required to leave Athens as they were alleged to have been involved with espionage and 'other hostile acts against the Entente Powers'.

BSA Students and Military Decorations from Greece

Several former BSA students were awarded Greek decorations in recognition of their military (and civilian) service during the First World War.

The most prestigious was the Order of the Redeemer first awarded in 1833. There are five classes. The Gold Cross was awarded to Erenest A. Gardner (who had served in naval intelligence in Salonica), and the Silver Cross was to John C. Lawson and Richard M. Dawkins (who had both served in naval intelligence on Crete). Other members of the school were awarded the order though the class is not clear: Robert C. Bosanquet, Stanley Casson, William R. Halliday, Solomon C. Kaines Smith, Arthur M. Woodward. Bosanquet had been present in Salonica working with refugees from Serbia.

The second most prestigious was the Royal Order of George I instituted in January 1915. There were two recipients, John L. Myres (Commander) and Henry A. Ormerod (Chevalier).

Kaines Smith and Lawson were awarded the Greek Medal of Military Merit, and E.M.W. Tillyard the Greek Military Cross.

BSA Students and Crete in the First World War

Students of the BSA had been involved in a series of excavations across Crete since the foundation of the Cretan Exploration Fund. These had included Knossos, the Dictaean Cave, Kato Zakro, Praesos, Palaikastro, the Kamares Cave and Plati.

Three former BSA students were commissioned as officers in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR): Richard M. Dawkins (1871-1955), John C. Lawson (1874-1935), and William R. Halliday (1886-1966). Their role was to monitor the activity of German submarines and to be involved in counter-espionage.

Lawson was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Dawkins had just resigned as Director of the BSA and was a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Both were in their 40s. Halliday had been appointed Rathbone Professor of Ancient History at Liverpool in 1914. Lawson was commissioned in February 1916, Halliday in May, and Dawkins in December. All held the rank of Lieutenant; Lawson rose to be Lt-Commander. (Dawkins' father had retired from the Royal Navy with the rank of Read-Admiral.) Lawson was based at Suda Bay, Dawkins to eastern Crete (an area he knew well from his excavations there), and Halliday to the western part of the island.

Lawson later wrote about aspects of his activity as an intelligence officer:

He must secure native agents ashore along coastlines of many hundred miles to report sightings of submarines, and movements of ships or persons suspected of communicating with or re-victualling them, and devise codes for the passing of such information. He must direct the tracking and procure the arrest of spies and enemy agents in general.

One of Lawson's actions was to annexe (briefly) the island of Kythera in January 1917 as he considered it to be acting as a base for enemy submarines responsible for a series of sinkings.

This work on Crete was conducted alongside other intelligence work through the Eastern Mediterranean Special Intelligence Bureau (EMSIB) in Salonica (see Harry Pirie-Gordon) or through civilian activity in Athens.

Mary Hamilton and the BSA

Mary Hamilton (1881-1962) was educated at St Andrews. Her father, Rev. William Hamilton, was the minister of the Trinity Evangelical Union Church in Dundee. (The church had been opened by James Morison [1816-93], founder of the Evangelical Union, in December 1877.) She held a fellowship from the Carnegie Trust (working on incubation) and was subsequently admitted to the BSA for the sessions 1905/06 and 1906/07. In Athens she met Guy Dickins (1881-1916) and they were married, c. 1909. Mary continued to use the address of her parents in Dundee.

Dickins was appointed lecturer in classical archaeology at Oxford in 1914 and they moved to 12 Holywell Street. Dickins was commissioned in November 1914 (Kings Royal Rifle Corps) and served in France; he died of wounds received on the Somme in 1916. Mary continued living at Holywell Street until 1917 when she moved to Bevington Road in Oxford. In 1925 she returned to Scotland, Callendar in Perthshire. She subsequently married Lacey Davis Caskey (1880-1944), curator of Classical Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and her contemporary in Athens at the American School (ASCSA); they lived in Wellesley, Mass.

Mary returned to Callendar in 1950.

Bibliography
Hamilton, M. 1906. Incubation, or, the cure of disease in pagan temples and Christian churches. London: W.C. Henderson & Son.
—. 1906/7. "The pagan element in the names of saints." Annual of the British School at Athens 13: 348–56.
—. 1910. Greek saints and their festivals. London: W. Blackwood & Sons.

John L. Myres: 'the passionate ubiquity of the Flying Dutchman'

In March 1917 John L. Myres, who had been conducting raids on the Anatolian coast, was posted to Syra. Compton Mackenzie (Aegean Memories, 1940) described his arrival:

A scholar of mundane reputation before the war, Professor J.L. Myres was now a Lieutenant-Commander in the R.N.V.R. In appearance he resembled some Assyrian king with more than a suggestion of the pirate Teach, and to such an outward form were added the passionate ubiquity of the Flying Dutchman and the fierce concentration of Captain Ahab. During the previous year he had organized a series of cattle raids on the Anatolian seaboard which in the end were stopped because it was alleged that they were doing more harm to the Greek population in Asia Minor than to their Turkish masters.

Gallipoli: Remembering Lives Lost

Today, April 25, is ANZAC Day when we remember the fallen at Gallipoli during the First World War. Two BSA students were killed during the campaign (see "BSA Deaths in the First World War"): Lieutenant George Leonard Cheesman, Hampshire Regiment, fell on 10 August 1915 during the surprise attack on Chunuk Bairun, and Captain William Loring, 2nd Scottish Horse, died of his wounds on the hospital ship Devanha on 24 October 1915. Loring's brother, Captain Ernest Loring RN, also served aboard ship at Gallipoli; two further brothers, Lt.-Col. Walter Latham Loring, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and Major Charles Buxton Loring, 37th Lancers (Baluch Horse) had been killed on the Western Front in October and December 1914.

At least two other former BSA students took part in an intelligence role (see "BSA Students and the First World War: Harry Pirie-Gordon"). Lt. Commander David Hogarth RNVR, working for the Arab Bureau in Cairo, was at Gallipoli in August 1915 interrogating Turkish prisoners of war. Lt. Harry Pirie-Gordon RNVR (Magdalen College, Oxford, like Hogarth) arrived at Gallipoli at the start of the landings but was evacuated on health grounds ('ptomaine poisoning') in May. He returned in the autumn and worked with Captain Ian Smith of the Royal Engineers (his former colleague from 1911-12 when they surveyed the area round the port of Alexandretta) on interrogation. Among the prisoners was Sharif Muhammad al Faruqi, an officer of the Ottoman army, who was interviewed in October 1915. Faruqi was recruited for the Arab Bureau operating as ‘G’, and serving as a go-between for Cairo and the Sharif of Mecca.

BSA Students in Australia and New Zealand

Former BSA students had a major impact on the teaching of classics in England outside Oxford and Cambridge (e.g. Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, London). Three former students held chairs in Australia and New Zealand.

• H. Arnold Tubbs (born c. 1865; Pembroke College, Oxford) worked with this Cyprus Exploration Fund and had to leave during the final season of excavations in Cyprus in 1890 to take up the position of professor of Classics at University College, Auckland, New Zealand.
• William John Woodhouse (1866-1937; The Queen's College, Oxford) had worked on the Megalopolis excavations and then conducted a survey in Aetolia. He was assistant lecturer in Bangor and then lecturer in St Andrews. In 1901 he was appointed professor Greek at the University of Sydney. He was also the honorary curator of the Nicholson Museum of Antiquities (1903-37).
• Cecil A. Scutt (1889-1961; Clare College, Cambridge) had been admitted to the BSA just before the outbreak of the First World War. He was an assistant master at Repton for two terms (1915-16), and joined Military Intelligence in Macedonia; he was invalided out of the army in 1918. In 1919 he was appointed professor of Classical Philology, University of Melbourne (1920-55).

BSA Deaths in the First World War: the Western Front

All but two of the deaths of former BSA students during the First World War were on the western front. Following the death of Guy Dickins on the Somme a letter ('Waste of Material') was sent to The Times (July 26, 1916) noting the deaths of three Oxford Fellows.

All three lives were lost leading infantry attacks in France. They would be less grudged if it was absolutely necessary to use the best brains of the country for this purpose: but is it really impossible to find no more suitable military work for them to do?

The fact that so many former students of the BSA were used in military intelligence (e.g. Harry Pirie-Gordon) perhaps indicates that such expertise was recongised.

BSA Students and the First World War: Harry Pirie-Gordon

Gill, D. W. J. 2006. "Harry Pirie-Gordon: historical research, journalism and intelligence gathering in the eastern Mediterranean (1908-18)." Intelligence and National Security 21: 1045-59.

Abstract
British scholars were active in the Levant during the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War. Harry Pirie-Gordon toured medieval castles in the region during the spring of 1908 under the auspices of the British School at Athens; T.E. Lawrence used his maps in the following year. Pirie-Gordon continued to travel widely in the Near East as a member of the Foreign Department of The Times and was involved with the survey of the Syrian coastline around Alexandretta. He was commissioned in the RNVR in 1914 and took part in the raid by HMS Doris on Alexandretta. Pirie-Gordon served in an intelligence capacity at Gallipoli before returning to Cairo to work with David Hogarth. In 1916 he was involved with the occupation of Makronisi (Long Island) in the Gulf of Smyrna. Later that year he took charge of the EMSIB operation at Salonica until its purge in early 1917. Pirie-Gordon returned to the Arab Bureau in Cairo and took part in the Palestine campaign.

[On-line]

BSA Deaths in the First World War

Some 115 male students had been admitted to the BSA before the First World War. Although at least four had died by the outbreak of hostilities (or in the early years of the war), it is surprising how few casualties were sustained from the ranks of former students.

Two were killed at Gallipoli. Lieutenant George Leonard Cheesman, a Fellow of New College who had enlisted in August 1914, was serving with the 10th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment. He landed with his unit at Suvla Bay on 7 August 1915 and took up position on the front-line at The Farm. He died in the Turkish surprise attack on Chunuk Bairun, led by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) on the morning of 10 August 1915. More than 1000 British troops died including Brigadier-General A.H. Baldwin. Captain William Loring was serving in the 2nd Scottish Horse. He had earlier served in the Boer War, first as a corporal in the 19th (Lothians and Berwickshire) Company, Imperial Yeomanry, and then as Lieutenant in the Scottish Horse. In the intervening period he had become Warden of Goldsmith's College. Loring's force landed as an infantry unit at Suvla Bay on 2 September 1915, and he died from wounds on a hospital ship; the date is disputed, either 22 (BSA) or 24 (Commonwealth War Graves Commission) October.

All the other BSA casualties were on the Western Front. Captain Kingdon Tregosse Frost, a lecturer at the Queen's University, Belfast, had joined the Officers' Training Corps (OTC) in Belfast. At the outbreak of war he was sent with the 1st Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment to Belgium as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). He was involved in the battle of Mons and was killed on 24 August 1914 (not 25 August as on the War Grave, or 4 September as on the BSA war memorial) near Elouges ‘fighting like a demon, having refused to surrender’. He was buried at Wihéries Communal Cemetery, Hainault. Lieutenant Cyril Bertram Moss-Blundell had been due to hold a school studentship at the BSA in 1914/15. He was commissioned in the 14th (Service) Battalion Durham Light Infantry in January 1915; Maurice S. Thompson, a former student of the BSA, had been commissioned in the same Battalion in August 1914. Moss-Blundell and Thompson arrived in France on 11 September 1915, and their unit took part in the battle of Loos on 26 September; during the fighting Moss-Blundell was killed. (Thompson survived the war.)

Captain Guy Dickins, fellow of St John's College, Oxford, was commissioned in November 1914 in the 13th (Service) Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps; Captain Erwin Wentworth Webster, fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and a former student of the BSA, received his commission for the same unit on the same day. Their unit was in France by July 1915. Dickins was injured at Pozières on 13 July 1916, during the battle of the Somme, and died of wounds in a field hospital on 17 July. He was buried at Amiens. Webster survived the Somme, but was killed on 9 April 1917 leading his company into action on the first day of the battle of Arras (First Battle of the Scarpe).

Roger Meyrick Heath had enrolled as a private in the Royal Fusiliers in September 1915. He was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant to the 9th, attached 3rd, Somerset Light Infantry, and posted to France in 1916. He was killed in action near Delville Wood on 16 September 1916, his first day in the trenches.

A plaque listing the casualties was erected in the BSA.