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.