Editing Arthur Evans (section)

==Biographical background==
===Family===
[[File:Nash mills during demolition.jpg|thumb|The [[Nash Mill|Nash paper mill]]]]
Arthur Evans<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&section=details&person=L78B-6MG|title=Evans, Arthur John Family search listing|website=[[FamilySearch]]}}</ref> was born in [[Nash Mills]], [[Hemel Hempstead]], [[Hertfordshire]], England, the first child of [[John Evans (archaeologist)|John Evans]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&section=details&person=LCJG-1P5|title=Evans, John Family search|website=[[FamilySearch]]}}</ref> (1823–1908) and Harriet Ann Dickinson (born 1824), the daughter of John's employer and maternal uncle, [[John Dickinson (1782–1869)]], the inventor and founder of Messrs John Dickinson, a paper mill. John Evans came from a family of men who were both educated and intellectually active but undistinguished by either wealth or aristocratic connection. His father, [[Arthur Benoni Evans]], Arthur Evan's grandfather, had been headmaster of [[Dixie Grammar School]] at [[Market Bosworth]], Leicestershire. John knew [[Latin]] and could quote the [[classics|classical authors]].

In 1840, instead of going to college, John started work in the mill owned by his maternal uncle, John Dickinson. He married his first cousin, Harriet, in 1850, which entitled him, in 1851, to a junior partnership in the family business.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society|author=A.G.|title=Sir John Evans, K.C.B., 1823–1908|volume=LXXX|date=December 1908|publisher=Royal Society of London|pages=l–lvi | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aRgLAAAAYAAJ&q=arthur+john+evans&pg=RA1-PR50}}</ref> Profits from the mill would help fund Arthur Evans's excavations, restorations at Knossos, and resulting publications. For the time being they were an unpretentious and affectionate family. They moved into a brick [[terraced house]] built for the purpose near the mill, which came to be called the "red house" because it lacked the sooty patina of the other houses.<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|p=21}}.</ref> Harriet called her husband "Jack." Grandmother Evans called Arthur Evans "darling Trot," asserting in a note that, compared to his father, he was "a bit of a dunce."<ref name=mac22>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|p=22}}.</ref> In 1856, with Harriet's declining health and Jack's growing reputation and prosperity, they moved into Harriet's childhood home, a mansion with a garden, where the children ran free.

John Evans maintained his status as an officer in the company, which eventually became [[John Dickinson Stationery]], but also became distinguished for his pursuits in [[numismatics]], geology, and archaeology. His interest in geology came from an assignment by the company to study the diminishing water resources in the area with a view toward protecting the company from lawsuits. The mill consumed large amounts of water, which was also needed for the canals. He became an expert and a legal consultant.<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|page=22}}.</ref>
John became a distinguished [[antiquary]], publishing numerous books and articles. In 1859, he conducted a geological survey of the [[Somme (river)|Somme Valley]] with [[Joseph Prestwich]]. His connections and invaluable advice were indispensable to Arthur Evans's career throughout the remainder of his long life.

Arthur Evans's mother, Harriet, died after childbirth in 1858 when he was seven. He had two brothers, [[Lewis Evans (collector)|Lewis]] (1853) and Philip Norman (1854), and two sisters, Harriet (1857) and Alice (1858). He would remain on excellent terms with all of them all of his life. He was raised by a stepmother, Fanny (Frances), née Phelps, with whom he also got along very well. She had no children of her own and also predeceased her husband. John's third wife was a classical scholar, [[Maria Millington Lathbury]]. When he was 70, they had a daughter, [[Joan Evans (art historian)|Joan]], who became an [[art historian]].<ref>{{cite web | title=Sir John Evans's Family Life – Children | work=Sir John Evans Centenary Project | publisher=University of Oxford, Ashmolean Museum | year=2009 | url=http://johnevans.ashmolean.org/evans/family3.html | access-date=30 March 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110413075901/http://johnevans.ashmolean.org/evans/family3.html | archive-date=13 April 2011 | url-status=dead }}</ref> John Evans died in 1908 at 85, when Arthur Evans was 57. His close support and assistance was indispensable in excavating and conceptualising Minoan civilisation.{{fact|date=November 2024}}

===Education===
====Harrow====
[[File:The Old Schools, Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex - geograph.org.uk - 364722.jpg|thumb|Harrow School]]
After a [[Preparatory school (UK)|preparatory school]],  he entered [[Harrow School]] in 1865 at the age of 14. He was co-editor of ''[[The Harrovian]]'' in his final year, 1869/70.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Harrow School Register, 1801–1900|edition=Second|year=1901|first=MG|last=Dauglish|page=343|publisher=Longmans, Green & Co|location=London, New York, Bombay | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NwYCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA244}}</ref> At Harrow he was friends with [[Francis Maitland Balfour]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Old Harrow days|first=James George Cotton|last=Minchin|publisher=Methuen Co|location=London|year=1898|page=[https://archive.org/details/oldharrowdays01mincgoog/page/n223 205]|isbn=1-117-38991-X | url=https://archive.org/details/oldharrowdays01mincgoog}}</ref> They competed for the Natural History Prize; the outcome was a draw. They were both highly athletic, including riding and swimming, and also mountain climbing, during which activity Balfour was killed later in life. Evans was near-sighted, but refused to wear glasses.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} His close-up vision was better than normal, enabling him to see detail missed by others. Farther away his field of vision was blurry and he compensated by carrying a cane, which he called Prodger, to explore the environment. His wit was very sharp, too sharp for the administration, which stopped a periodical he had started, ''The Pen-Viper'', after the first issue.<ref>{{harvnb|Cottrell|1958|pp=84–85}}.</ref>

====Oxford====
[[File:Brasenose College from the High Street.jpg|thumb|left|Brasenose College]]
Arthur matriculated on 9 June 1870<ref>Oxford Men and the Colleges 1880–92</ref> and attended [[Brasenose College, Oxford]]. His [[housemaster]] at Harrow, F. Rendall, had eased the way to his acceptance with the recommendation that he was "a boy of powerful original mind." At Brasenose College, he read Modern History, a new curriculum, which was nearly a disaster, as his main interests were in archaeology and classical studies.

His summertime activities with his brothers and friends were perhaps more important to his subsequent career. Having been given an ample allowance by his father, he went looking for adventure on the continent, seeking out circumstances that might be considered dangerous by some. In June 1871, he and Lewis visited [[Hallstatt]], where his father had excavated in 1866, adding some of the artefacts to his collection. Arthur Evans had made himself familiar with these. Subsequently, they went on to Paris and then to [[Amiens]]. The [[Franco-Prussian War]] had just concluded the month before. Arthur Evans had been told at the French border to remove the dark cape he was wearing so that he would not be shot for a spy.<ref>{{harvnb|Cottrell|1958|p=86}}.</ref> Amiens was occupied by the Prussian army. Arthur found them prosaic and preoccupied with souvenir-hunting. He and Lewis hunted for stone-age artefacts in the gravel quarries, Arthur Evans remarking that he was glad the Prussians were not interested in flint artefacts.<ref>{{harvnb | MacGillivray | 2000 | pp=40–41}}.</ref>

In 1872, he and Norman adventured into Ottoman territory in the [[Carpathians]], already in a state of political tension. They crossed borders illegally at high altitudes, "revolvers at the ready." This was Arthur Evans's first encounter with Turkish people and customs. He bought a set of clothes of a wealthy Turkish man, complete with red fez, baggy trousers, and an embroidered short-sleeved tunic. His detailed, enthusiastic account was published in ''[[Fraser's Magazine]]'' in May 1873.

In 1873, he and Balfour tramped over [[Sápmi (area)|Lapland]], Finland, and Sweden. Everywhere he went he took copious anthropological notes and made numerous drawings of the people, places and artefacts.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|1993|pp=11–19}}.</ref> During the Christmas holidays of 1873, Evans catalogued a coin collection being bequeathed to Harrow by [[John Gardner Wilkinson]], the father of British [[Egyptology]], who was too ill to work on it himself. The headmaster had suggested "my old pupil, Arthur John Evans – a remarkably able young man."<ref>{{cite book|title=Sir Gardner Wilkinson and His Circle|first=Jason|last=Thompson|publisher=University of Texas Press|year=1992|isbn= 9780292776432|page=343}}</ref>

Arthur John Evans graduated from Oxford at the age of 24 in 1874, but his career had come near to foundering during the final examinations on modern history. Despite his extensive knowledge of ancient history, classics, archaeology, and what would be termed today cultural anthropology, he apparently had not even read enough in his nominal subject to pass the required examination. He could answer no questions on topics later than the 12th century.<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|p=42}}.</ref> He had convinced one of his examiners, [[Edward Augustus Freeman]], of his talent. They were both published authors, they were both Gladstone liberals, and they were both interested in the [[Herzegovina uprising (1875–1877)]] and on the side of [[Old Herzegovina]] insurgents. Freeman convinced Evans's tutors, George Kitchen and [[John Richard Green]], and they convinced the Regius professor, [[William Stubbs]], that, in view of his special other knowledge and interests, and his father's "high standing in learned society", Evans should not only be passed, but receive a first-class degree. It was the topic of much jesting; Green wrote to Freeman on 11 November 1875:{{blockquote|"I am very sorry to have missed you, dear Freeman ... Little Evans – son of John Evans the great – has just come back from the Herzegovina which he reached by way of Lapland, having started from the Schools in excitement at the 'first' I wrung for him out of the obdurate Stubbs ..."}}

In the spring of 1875 he applied for the Archaeological Travelling Studentship offered by Oxford, but, as he says in a letter to Freeman later in life,<ref name=cot92>{{harvnb|Cottrell|1958|p=92}}.</ref> he was turned down thanks to the efforts of [[Benjamin Jowett]] and [[Charles Thomas Newton]], two Oxford dons having a low opinion of his work there.

====Göttingen====
In April–July of 1875 he attended a summer term at the [[University of Göttingen]] at the suggestion of [[Henry Montagu Butler]], then headmaster at Harrow. Evans was to study with [[Reinhold Pauli]], who had spent some years in Britain, and was a friend of Green. The study would be preparatory to doing research in modern history at Göttingen. The arrangement may have been meant as a remedial plan. On the way to Göttingen, Evans was sidetracked, unpropitiously for the modern history plan, by some illegal excavations at Trier. He had noticed that the tombs were being plundered surreptitiously. For the sake of preserving some artefacts, he hired a crew, performed such hasty excavations as he could, crated the material and sent it home to John.<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|p=43}}</ref>

Göttingen was not to Evans's liking. His quarters were stuffy, and the topics were of little interest to him, as he had already demonstrated. His letters speak mainly of the discrepancy between the poor peasants of the countryside and the institution of the wealthy in the town. His thinking was of a revolutionary bent. Deciding not to stay, he left there to meet Lewis for another trip to [[Old Herzegovina]]. That decision marked the end of his formal education. Herzegovina was then in a [[Herzegovina uprising (1875–1877)|state of insurrection]]. The Ottomans were using [[bashi-bazouk]]s to try to quell it. Despite subsequent events, there is no evidence that the young Evans might have had ulterior motives at this time, despite the fact that Butler had helped to educate half the government of the United Kingdom. He was simply an adventurous young man bored with poring through books in a career into which he had been pushed against his real interests. The real adventure, in his mind, was the revolution in the Balkans.{{cn|date=February 2024}}