Sifting the Soil of Greece: Student Biographies

Sifting the Soil of Greece contains three sets of short biographies:

• i. Trustees of the British School at Athens
• ii. Members of the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens
• iii. Directors and students at the British School at Athens

Sifting the Soil of Greece

David W.J. Gill, Sifting the Soil of Greece: the Early Years of the British School at Athens (1886-1919). Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, suppl. 111. London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2011. ISBN 978-1-905670-32-1. £38. xiv + 474 pp.
[WorldCat]

The British School at Athens opened in 1886 “to promote all researches and studies” which could “advance the knowledge of Hellenic history, literature, and art from the earliest age to the present day”. Over the next thirty years the School initiated a major programme of excavations, initially on Cyprus, then at Megalopolis, on Melos, and at Sparta. School students took part in the work of the Cretan Exploration Fund and in the major regional surveys of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund.

Most of the students who were admitted to the School in this period had been educated at either Cambridge or Oxford. Women, mostly from Cambridge, took part in the School’s activities including the excavations at Phylakopi. The students’ research interests included Greek pottery, Aegean prehistory, and epigraphy. The experience of Greece prepared the students for later work in British universities and in other professions. Many extended their archaeological experience in Greece to fieldwork in Britain, Egypt, and India.

During the First World War former students were involved in intelligence work in the eastern Mediterranean through the activities of the Arab Bureau in Cairo.

Ordering
Email: icls.publications@sas.ac.uk
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Website: Institute of Classical Studies
Book details and online ordering: ICS

Directors: The Inter-War Years

The Directors of the BSA during the period 1918-1945 were:

• Alan John Bayard Wace: 1914-23. [ODNB]
  
• Arthur Maurice Woodward: 1923-29. [DBC]
  
• Humfry Gilbert Garth Payne: 1929-36. [ODNB]
  
• Alan Albert Antisdel Blakeway: 1936. [DBC]
• Gerard Mackworth Young (Mackworth-Young from 1947): 1936-46. [ODNB]
  

Cambridge: Wace, Young.
Oxford: Woodward, Payne, Blakeway.

The British School at Athens (1886-1919): Outline

I am revising the text of my study of the British School at Athens (1886-1919). Here is the working outline:

Part 1: The School

Chapter 1: The Origins of the School

Chapter 2: The Directors of the School

Chapter 3: The BSA Managing Committee

Part 2: Students of the British School at Athens

Chapter 4: Oxford and Cambridge Students

Chapter 5: Women at the British School at Athens

Chapter 6: Other Students in Athens

Part 3: Fieldwork

Chapter 7: Cyprus

Chapter 8: Mainland Greece and the Peloponnese

Chapter 9: The Islands

Chapter 10: Anatolia

Chapter 11: North Africa and Other Projects

Part 4: After the British School at Athens

Chapter 12: Subsequent Careers

Chapter 13: Further Excavations

Chapter 14: Students at War

Appendix

Biographies of Students at the British School at Athens (1886-1919)

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.

BSA Students and St Andrews

Only a small proportion of students admitted to the BSA had studied in Scotland. There was a single student from St Andrews. Mary Hamilton, originally from Dundee, graduated from St Andrews in Classics in 1902, and subsequently held a Research Fellowship under the Carnegie Trust (1903/04). This resulted in her study of Incubation, or, the cure of disease in pagan temples and Christian churches (1906) [WorldCat]. She was formally admitted as a student to the BSA in 1905/06 and 1906/07; in 1905 she was also admitted to the British School at Rome.

Three former students of the BSA were lecturers in St Andrews:

• William John Woodhouse (1866-1937) was lecturer in Ancient History and Political Philosophy (1900). He had been admitted as a student at the BSA in 1889/90 and had subsequently been an assistant lecturer at Bangor (1896-99). In 1901 he moved to Sydney to be professor of Greek.
• Adolph Paul Oppé (1878-1957) was a lecturer in Greek from 1902 immediately after his year in Athens (1901/02). In 1904 he was appointed lecturer in Ancient History at Edinburgh.
• Alan John Bayard Wace (1879-1957) was appointed lecturer in Ancient History and Archaeology (1912-14) after a long-period as a student in Athens (first admitted 1902/03) and librarian for the British School at Rome (1905/06). He left St Andrews to become director of the BSA.
  

Students at the British School at Athens (1886-1914)

Gill, D. W. J. 2008. Students at the British School at Athens (1886-1914). Swansea: Ostraka Press.

ISBN 978-0-9558498-0-0.
Cost: £5.95.

72 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, cream interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-colour exterior ink.

This volume provides indexes for more than 130 students admitted to the British School at Athens from its establishment in 1886 to the outbreak of the First World War. There is a short introductory essay with bibliography.

Contents

A. Introduction

B. School Backgrounds

C. Cambridge Colleges

D. Oxford Colleges

E. Universities and Educational Establishments in England

F. Universities and Educational Establishments in Scotland

G. University and Educational Establishments in Ireland

H. Universities and Educational Establishments Outside Great Britain

I. Fellowships at Cambridge Colleges

J. Fellowships at Oxford Colleges

K. Students by Year of Admission at the BSA

L. Directors and Students Listed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)

M. Alphabetical List of Students

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Directors: the Transition from Dawkins to Wace

Richard M. Dawkins was due to complete his term of office as director at the end of September 1913. However in this was extended for an additional year (in spite of the suggestion in Helen Waterhouse that his term of office came to an end in 1913). Alan J.B. Wace was offered the directorship in the autumn of 1913, to start from October 1914.

Dawkins felt he could resign due to the death of his mother's cousin, the historian John Andrew Doyle (1844-1907). Dawkins inherited Doyle's two houses in Wales: Plas Dulas in Denbighshire and Pendarren near Crickhowell. Dawkins' mother, Mary Louisa, was a granddaughter of Sir John Easthope (1784-1865).

One of Dawkins' neighbours in Crickhowell was Harry Pirie-Gordon who was admitted as a student in 1908.

Reference
Waterhouse, H. 1986. The British School at Athens: the first hundred years. British School at Athens supplementary volume, vol. 19. London: Thames & Hudson.

David Hogarth on Melos

David Hogarth had excavated at Old Paphos with the Cyprus Exploration Fund (1888) and then at Koptos in Egypt with Flinders Petrie (1894). He then joined the Egypt Exploration Fund's excavation at Deir-el-Bahari (1894), before working at Alexandria with E.F. Benson (1895), a BSA student, and then the Faiyum (1895-96).

Petrie had been the main influence on Hogarth when he went to Phylakopi on Melos to direct the BSA's excavations there. He noted:

The workmen were all native Melians, a singularly honest and industrious lot as compared with many that I have had to do with in excavation work, but possessing little experience and not conspicuous intelligence. Consequently, while they were little likely to steal, they needed constant watching and directing; and I found it not advisable to introduce among them methods that, following Mr. Petrie, I had used from time to time in Egypt, under which the men are left very much to themselves. For instance, payment by cubic metre of earth excavated, which I had contemplated introducing in order not to have to "drive" the gangs, proved not feasible in view of the large quantity of valuable pottery which the soil everywhere contained. It would have been necessary to counteract the tendency to haste, which all metre work induces, by paying a price for countless sherds which up to then had had no money value in the island. Both the disbursement would have been too great for our funds, and an unfortunate precedent would have been introduced to disturb the Aracadian simplicity of the Melians.

Bibliography
Hogarth, D. G. 1897/98. "Excavations in Melos 1898. I. The season's work." Annual of the British School at Athens 4: 1-16.

Francis Haverfield and Robert Carr Bosanquet

Phil Freeman was written a wonderfully detailed study of Francis Haverfield (1860-1919). In the section on Haverfield's 'associates', Freeman notes the strong link with Robert Carr Bosanquet (1871-1935), of Rock Hall, near Alnwick, Northumberland. Apart from being Director of the BSA, Bosanquet excavated at Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall, and later in Wales when he held the chair of classical archaeology at Liverpool.

Freeman notes the close link between the two (especially over the work in Wales) but comments (p. 414):

How and when Bosanquet came into contact with Haverfield again is not known. ... their association has to go back to Haverfield's work around Hadrian's Wall, where Bosanquet was born and later farmed.

The answer probably lies in Thomas Hodgkin (1831-1913) who had close links with Haverfield through the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. Both were involved with the excavations at Corbridge (along with Haverfield's student Leonard Cheesman (1884-1915), who was subsequently admitted to the BSA).

In July 1902 Bosanquet married Ellen Sophia (1875-1965), Hodgkin's daughter, who had read modern history at Somerville College, Oxford. She recalled her frequent visits to Hadrian's Wall as a child:

From Chollerford you could start with the Roman Camp at Chesters and go to all the other camps along the Wall, especially dear Borcovicus (Housesteads). We went on this drive so often that Chapman said the horses drew up of their own accord when we came to the right halt for a camp or a view. And so even as children we became familiar with theories of vallum and milecastles.

The Hodgkins lived in rural Northumberland first at Bamburgh, and then at Barmoor Castle. Ellen mentioned the Bosanquets at social functions. Indeed, around 1892, she remembered meeting Bosanquet, then at Trinity College, Cambridge, on a walking-tour of the Wall with Ellen's brother Edward (also at Trinity).

Tellingly Ellen refers to Bosanquet's Oxford 'cronies' (in the autumn of 1902) but does not identify them. One was likely to have been Haverfield.

Bibliography
Bosanquet, E. S. n.d. Late harvest: memories, letters and poems. London: Chameleon Press.
Bosanquet, R. C. 1904. "Excavations on the line of the Roman Wall in Northumberland. 1: The Roman camp at Housesteads." Archaeologia Aeliana 25: 193-300.
Bosanquet, R. C. 1920. "Francis John Haverfield, F.S.A., a vice-president." Archaeologia Aeliana 17: 137-43.
Freeman, P. W. M. 2007. The best training ground for archaeologists: Francis Haverfield and the invention of Romano-British archaeology. Oxford: Oxbow. [Worldcat]

Easter at the BSA

Easter Sunday had a special significance for Ellen S. Bosanquet, wife of the School's Director, Robert. On April 17 1903, Orthodox Easter, she gave birth to their first child, Charles.

She describes the day in Late harvest: memories, letters and poems (London: Chameleon Press). The court physician, Dr Louros, attended her:

It was rather a shock when the crucial moment arrived ... and I found at the bedside, not an accoucher in nice white drill jacket, but a Court official clad in blue cloth and gold braid, with orders jingling in a row on his chest. I have no doubt he had come to me straight from some court function ... The pangs of childbirth were punctuated throughout that day by the continual popping of firearms, for the Greeks celebrate Easter by "shooting Judas" at intervals. Finally, when it was seen that I had given birth to a son on Easter Day, there was universal rejoicing for a variety of reasons.

Charles later became the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Assistant Directors (1895-1915)

The first assistant director was appointed in 1895/96 to assist Cecil Harcourt-Smith who was on a six-month secondment from the British Museum. The post was held by the John George Smith (b. 1869) who had been admitted to the School in 1891/92, while still an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, under Ernest Gardner. One of Smith's roles was to assist with the Library; he also accompanied Harcourt-Smith to look for sites on Melos.

The next assistant was George Chatterton Richards (1867-1951) who had been admitted to the BSA under Ernest Gardner and had assisted with the excavations at Megalopolis. He had studied at Balliol College, and while in Greece had held a fellowship at Hertford College. In 1891 he was appointed professor of Greek at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (1891-98). It was in this period that he was assistant to David G. Hogarth for a period of four months for the 1897/98 session to deliver 'lectures in the museums to students and (at Easter time) to visitors'. He also prepared the report on 'Archaeology in Greece'.

Hogarth's second assistant director was Robert Carr Bosanquet (1871-1935) for the year 1899/1900 (for which he received a stipend of £350). Like Richards, Bosanquet prepared the report on 'Archaeology in Greece'. With Hogarth excavating on Crete, Bosanquet took administrative control in Athens which prepared him for becoming the successor to Hogarth.

Marcus N. Tod (1878-1974) was Bosanquet's assistant for two sessions (1903/04, 1904/05), alongside a fellowship at Oriel College, Oxford; he had previously been Senior Student at the BSA. As Senior Student he had assisted with the reorganisation of the Library (1902/03), and one of his roles as assistant director was supervision of the library and hostel.

Henry Julius Wetenhall Tillyard (1881-1968) served as temporary librarian during 1904/05 as the Penrose Memorial Library opened. (Tod had returned to his fellowship in Oxford in early March 1905.) Tillyard had been working on boundary stones in Attica and had taken an active part in the Laconia project.

Frederick W. Hasluck (1878-1920) was appointed librarian for the BSA in 1905/06 (alongside a fellowship at King's College, Cambridge). Hasluck had earlier been admitted as student in 1901/02. He was then appointed assistant director and librarian from 1906/07 until 1915 (with a stipend of £150). For one year, 1910/11, he was on leave of absence and was replaced by Arthur M. Woodward (1883-1973). During Richard M. Dawkins' leave of absence (1911/12) Hasluck was acting director.

Ernest Gardner and the study of sculpture

Ernest Gardner was the first Cambridge student at the BSA (1886/87). One of the tasks for his first year was a survey of Greek sculpture including a description of Cavvadias' installation in the Athenian Central Museum (later known as The National Archaeological Museum). Gardner mentioned works from Tegea, Delos, and Epidauros now on display in Athens, and then reviewed the displays in the Acropolis Museum, noting the newly discovered archaic statues, and the museum at Olympia. The archaic sculptures from the Athenian akropolis were the subject of a longer, separate study.

Gardner researched the technique of ancient Greek sculpture through the study of unfinished pieces. These included an kouros from Naxos (Athens NM 14; cat. no. 67), a late classical piece from Rheneia, and other unfinished pieces in the Archaeological Museum.

A further study published from Gardner's time as director was a head from his excavations at Paphos on Cyprus, and the stela of Kephisodotos, possibly from Lerna, in the museum at Argos.

After his move to University College London, Gardner prepared a Handbook of Greek Sculpture.

References
Gardner, E. A. 1887. "Recently discovered archaic statues." Journal of Hellenic Studies 8: 159-93. [JSTOR]
—. 1887. "Sculpture and epigraphy, 1886-1887." Journal of Hellenic Studies 8: 278-85. [JSTOR]
—. 1890. "The processes of Greek sculpture as shown by some unfinished statues at Athens." Journal of Hellenic Studies 11: 129-42. [JSTOR]
—. 1890. "Two fourth century children's heads." Journal of Hellenic Studies 11: 100-08. [JSTOR]
—. 1896. A handbook of Greek sculpture. Handbooks of archaeology and antiquities, vol. 1. London: Macmillan and Co. [WorldCat]
—. 1897. A handbook of Greek sculpture. Handbooks of archaeology and antiquities, vol. 2. London: Macmillan and Co. [WorldCat]

Unfinished kouros from Naxos. © David Gill.

'Trafficking' antiquities from Melos

The issue of looting and the destruction of archaeological sites is not a new one. Cecil Harcourt-Smith, at the Annual Meeting of Subscribers in July 1897 commented about the need for excavation on Melos:

The antiquities of the islands are in many instances still comparatively unexplored, and are subject to the caprice, or even the trafficking, of the ignorant peasantry, and it is therefore highly desirable that, before it is too late, everything that can be done should be done to place on record their valuable but steadily disappearing remains of art and history.

Cambridge and Craven Students

The Craven Trust supported BSA students in three ways:

1. The Craven University Studentship.
2. The Craven Studentship
3. The Craven Fund

Craven University Student

• 1886/87 (Cambridge and Craven University Student): Ernest Arthur Gardner (1862-1939). Gonville & Caius. First Cambridge student.
• 1894/95 (Craven University Student): Robert Carr Bosanquet (1871-1935). Trinity. Part 2, 1st (1894). Admitted 1892/93.

Craven Student
The studentship was created in 1885,

for the purpose of facilitating advanced study or research away form Cambridge in the languages, literature, history, archaeology, or art of ancient Greece or Rome, or the comparative philology of the Indo-European languages.

The regulations stated:

The studentship shall be of the annual value of £200 and shall be tenable for one year, one student being elected annually at such time as the University may from time to time determine, but a Craven student shall not be eligible for re-election on more than two occasions.

• 1887-90: Ernest Arthur Gardner (1862-1939). Gonville & Caius. Director: 1887-1895. Previously Craven University Student (1886/87).
  
• 1891/92, 1892/93: William Loring (1865-1915). King's. Part 2, 1st (1889). Admitted 1889/90 (Cambridge Studentship).
• 1893/94: Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940). King's. Part 2, 1st (1891). Admitted 1891/92; 1892/93 (Cambridge Studentship).
• 1895/96, 1896/97: Robert Carr Bosanquet (1871-1935). Trinity. Part 2, 1st (1894). Admitted 1892/93. Previously Craven University Student (1894/95).
  
• 1898/99, 1899/1900: John Cuthbert Lawson (1874-1935). Pembroke. Part 2, 1st (1897).
• 1901/02: John Hubert Marshall (1876-1958). King's. Part 2, 1st (1900). Admitted 1898/99; 1900/01 (Prendergast Greek Studentship).
• 1903/04: Alan John Bayard Wace (1879-1957). Pembroke. Part 2, 1st (1902). Admitted 1902/03 (Prendergast Greek Studentship).

Craven Fund
The regulations stated,

The annual sum of £40 shall be paid to the managers for the time being of a fund to be called the Craven Fund, by whom grants may be made from time to time for the furtherance of research in the languages, literature, history, archaeology, and art of ancient Greece and Rome, and the comparative philology of the Indo-European languages.

• 1887/88: Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936). King's. Part 2, 1st (1885). £40, 'for the purpose of archaeological work on Cyprus'.
• 1891/92: Francis Brayne Baker (1868-not known). Christ's. £40, ‘for archaeological study in connexion with the British School at Athens’ (1891).'
• 1896/97 (Craven Fund): Frank Russell Earp (1871-1955). King's. Part 2, 1st (1894). £40.
  
• 1898/99: Clement Gutch (1875-1908). King's. Part 2, Greek and Roman Archaeology, 1st (1898). £40, ‘to carry out the exploration of certain necropoleis in the Greek Cyclades’.
• 1901/02: Robert Carr Bosanquet (1871-1935). Trinity. As Director, £90, ‘to be used for the expenses in excavations at Cyzicus’.
• 1905/06: Henry Julius Wetenhall Tillyard (1881-1968). Gonville & Caius. Part 2, 1st (1904).
• 1903/04: Richard Macgillivray Dawkins (1871-1955). Emmanuel. Part 2, 1st (1902). £50.
• 1912/13: Max Ludwig Wolfram Laistner (1890-1959). Jesus College. Part 2, 1st (1912). £40.