Richard MacGillivray Dawkins

Not to be confused with Richard Dawkins.

Richard MacGillivray Dawkins FBA (24 October 1871 – 4 May 1955) was a British archaeologist.^[1][2][3] He was associated with the British School at Athens (BSA), of which he was Director between 1906 and 1913.^[4]

Richard MacGillivray Dawkins
Born	(1871-10-24)24 October 1871 Surbiton, London, England
Died	4 May 1955(1955-05-04) (aged 83) Oxford, England
Parents	Rear-Admiral Richard Dawkins (father) Mary Louisa McGillivray (mother)
Academic background
Education	Marlborough College
Alma mater	King's College, London
Academic work
Institutions	Emmanuel College, Cambridge British School at Athens Exeter College, Oxford

Early life

Richard MacGillivray Dawkins was the son of the Royal Navy officer Rear-Admiral Richard Dawkins of Stoke Gabriel and his wife Mary Louisa McGillivray, only surviving daughter of Simon McGillivray. He was educated at Marlborough College and at King's College, London where he trained as an electrical engineer.

Academic career

He took part in the BSA's excavations at Palaikastro,^[5] and the survey of Lakonia^[6] (see Artemis Orthia and Menelaion, Sparta); also at Rhitsona.^[7] He undertook linguistic fieldwork in Cappadocia from 1909 to 1911, which resulted in a basic work on Cappadocian Greek. Then, he led a dig at Phylakopi from 1911.^[8]

Dawkins was a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was director of the British School at Athens from 1906 to 1913.^[9] During the First World War, he served as an intelligence officer attached to the Royal Navy in Crete.^[10][11] In December 1919, he was elected the first Bywater Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature in the University of Oxford.^[9] In 1922, he became a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.^[12] Between 1928 and 1930, Dawkins served as president of the Folklore Society, and in his later life published three considerable collections of Greek folk tales.^[10]

In 1907, Dawkins inherited the Plas Dulas estate in Llanddulas, Conwy, north Wales from a first cousin. There, he experimented with plant importation and cultivation. He also displayed archaeological antiquities within the garden.^[13] Visitors included Noel Coward and Evelyn Waugh.^[14]

Works

• Modern Greek in Asia Minor (1916)
• The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta (1929)
• The Cypriot Chronicle of Makhairas (1932)
• The Monks of Athos (1936)
• Forty-Five Stories from the Dodecanese (1950)
• Arabian Nights
• Norman Douglas (G. Orioli, 1933 [Lungarno series], revised 1952)
• Modern Greek Folktales (1953)
• More Greek Folktales (1955)
• More Stories from the Arabian Nights (1957)

References

1. Halliday, W. R.; Gill, David (23 September 2004). "Dawkins, Richard MacGillivray (1871–1955)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32749.
2. "Professor R. M. Dawkins The Living Greek Tradition (Obituaries)". The Times. No. 53213. 6 May 1955. p. 13.
3. "Prof. R. M. Dawkins (Obituaries)". The Times. No. 53223. 18 May 1955. p. 13, col. D.
4. "Directors of the British School at Athens". UK: Swansea University. Archived from the original on 1 November 2012. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
5. "History of the British School at Athens". British School at Athens. UK: University of Glasgow. Archived from the original on 25 September 2006. Retrieved 19 December 2006.
6. "Mani - History - 1821 to present". Mani: A Guide and History.
7. Ronald M. Burrows and Percy N. Ure in Boeotia. by Dr. Victoria Sabetai, Academy of Athens. A lecture given at the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, 2006. Archived here.
8. "History of the British School at Athens". UK: University of Glasgow. Archived from the original on 25 September 2006. Retrieved 19 December 2006.
9. "Modern Greek at Oxford". The Times. No. 42281. 12 December 1919. p. 18.
10. Halliday, W. R. (1 June 1955). "Obituary R. M. Dawkins, 1871–1955". Folklore. 66 (2): 299–301. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1955.9717476. ISSN 0015-587X.
11. Mackridge, Peter. "The Crete of R.M. Dawkins (1903–1919)". UK: Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford. Retrieved 14 February 2025.
12. "Richard MacGillivray Dawkins". An English Cubist: William Roberts, 1895–1980. UK. Retrieved 14 February 2025.
13. "History of Plas Dulas Estate". Archived from the original on 19 May 2012. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
14. "Writers drawn to Llanddulas mansion". BBC News. UK: BBC. 1 December 2009. Retrieved 14 February 2025.

Other sources

• Jenkins, R. J. H. (1955). "Richard MacGillivray Dawkins, 1871–1955". Proceedings of the British Academy. 41: 373–388.

External links

• Works by or about Richard MacGillivray Dawkins at the Internet Archive
• Richard MacGillivray Dawkins (1871–1955), Scholar of classical and modern Greek portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, London