Here we introduce not just the members of the team who were chosen to bring this project to fruition based on their expertise, but also those who came before us and made this collection possible in the first place. These are of course first and foremost the collectors or creators themselves, George Finlay and Frank Hastings; but also Joan Mervyn Hussey, to whom we owe not just the first published catalogue of the Finlay collection but also almost 30 years of meticulous engagement with it.
Dr Michalis Sotiropoulos, FRHistS
is the 1821 Fellow in Modern Greek Studies at the BSA, and the Principal Investigator of the project. Before this post, he held post-doctoral and teaching positions at Queen Mary, University of London, Princeton University, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and the Democritus University of Thrace. His research interests lie in the intellectual history of the long nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the Mediterranean and the processes (revolts, revolutions, secessions, unifications, constitution-making and state-building) that changed the political culture and eventually the political and geopolitical map of the region. He has published widely on these issues while his book Liberalism after the Revolution: The Intellectual Foundations of the Greek state, c. 1830-1880 was recently published by Cambridge University Press. For more information, click here
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Professor Roderick Beaton (Academic Adviser to the project)
is Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King’s College London and Chair of the BSA Council. He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA, 2013), a Fellow of King’s College (FKC, 2018), and in 2019 was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic by the then President, Prokopios Pavlopoulos. His books include Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution (2013); Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation (2019) and The Greek Revolution of 1821 and its Global Significance (2021, expanded from a lecture originally given for the BSA); all of these are also available in Greek translation.
Ms Amalia Kakissis
is the Archivist of the British School at Athens with degrees in Archaeology and Archives and Records Management. Her work involves planning and implementing projects for the preservation, cataloguing, digitization of archive collections as well as organizing outreach and educational presentations. Her research interests lie in influential historical figures of Hellenic Studies, how archival records can enhance research in Hellenic Studies and how to link these into a wider research network.
Ms Felicity Crowe
has degrees in English Literature, Medieval Studies and Archives and Records Management. She completed her archives training at Westminster School, worked at the British School at Athens as the 1821 Archive Project Assistant in the 2021-2022 academic year, and is now Archivist of the British Institute of Libyan and Northern African Studies. She’s interested in the wildflowers of Greece, commonplace books, fragments, and archives relating to the Mediterranean.
George Finlay (1799-1875)
George Finlay was born in 1799 and spent most of his youth in Scotland. Coming from a family of Protestant merchants and bureaucrats, he went on to study law at the University of Glasgow and then at Göttingen. It was there that he developed an interest in the Greek cause and philhellenism, and his enthusiasm for liberal causes, combined with a sense of Romantic idealism and adventure, led him to leave his studies and go to help the Greeks. This he did first in 1823-25, when he worked with Lord Byron during the last months of the poet’s life and served on board the steamship Karteria with Captain Frank Abney Hastings. Returning to Greece in 1827, Finlay settled in Athens (1829), where he remained until his death in 1875.
Always involved in Greek politics and very active intellectually, Finlay would wear many different hats in the course of his life: he would make a name for himself as a journalist, a member of several associations (a founding member in many instances), a collector, a commentator, and a traveller. As such, he was connected not only with many prominent Greeks and foreigners in Greece, but also with a wide range of British travellers, writers and intellectuals. Intellectually he was in touch with a range of British, Greek and Western European journalism and historical scholarship. Finlay’s most lasting contribution would be the series of works on the history of Greece that he began publishing in 1844, including his History of the Greek Revolution that appeared in 1861 and remains to this day one of the most authoritative accounts of the conflict. Αfter his death, these works were edited (by H.F. Tozer) and published in 1877 under the collective title A History of Greece from its Conquest by the Romans to the Present Time, B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864, 7 vols. All of this wide range of activity is reflected in Finlay’s collection held at the BSA.
Frank Abney Hastings (1794-1828)
was a British naval officer and one of the unsung heroes of the Greek Revolution of 1821. Born into a noble British family, he would probably have gone on to an illustrious career in the Royal Navy had he not been discharged in 1819 after a quarrel with his commanding officer while serving in the Caribbean. A few years later he decided to travel to Greece to aid the rebels in their revolution against the Ottomans. Until he was killed in action at sea off Missolonghi in 1828, Hastings brought to the conflict a unique blend of naval experience and strategic insight. He was one of the first to propose using steamships in warfare, and captained the first one ever built for the purpose, the Karteria.
Joan Mervyn Hussey (1907-2006)
was the first scholar to devote time to making the Finlay Collection accessible to those who came after her. Born in Wiltshire, UK, Joan was a Byzantinist by education and by profession. After studying at Oxford and UCL, she taught at the universities of Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford, and at Bedford College and Royal Holloway, which at the time were schools of the University of London. Between 1961 and 1971 she served as President of the British National Committee for Byzantine Studies. Joan was also a dedicated friend and member of the BSA, with a keen interest in the Finlay Collection. Not only did she study, organise and catalogue this rich body of material, but she published the catalogue in The British School at Athens. Supplementary Volumes, No. 9, THE FINLAY PAPERS: A CATALOGUE (1973).