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.

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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.