Charles F. Watkins

In December 1885 the manager of the Imperial Ottoman Bank at Larnaca sued Falkland Warren over the right to dig at Frangissa, and lost. Charles Watkins was the plaintiff in Watkins v. Warren, the case that the Cyprus Herald said caused "greater interest among the English Community in Cyprus than any other event since the Occupation"¹.

The banker at Larnaca

Agnes Smith Lewis found him at the bank, where he had succeeded Mr. Hamilton Lang, and he stored her luggage while she toured the island¹⁸. Michael Given describes him as the respected director of the bank and a member of the Legislative Council, and as president of the Larnaca Municipal Council for a year, in effect its mayor, with the Cyprus Herald of 24 April 1884 as his authority. Given adds that Watkins was loyal to the regime, entertained officials at his house and praised its road-building¹. Masson calls him "quelque temps directeur" of the bank³. Buchholz says he wrote the Consular Report for 1877 and judges him a sober businessman and "a cool calculator" who dug for profit rather than from love of archaeology²; Merrillees says he became British consul in 1877¹⁶.

Max Ohnefalsch-Richter wrote that Watkins was the only man in Cyprus who financed excavation on a generous scale and left the excavator free to work¹⁰. In December 1884 Ohnefalsch-Richter told Koehler in a letter that he was starting "with the banker Watkins and D. Pierides" to choose antiquities to send to Henri Hoffmann in Paris for auction⁴. The letter does not say whose objects they were.

Idalion, Katydata and the other digs

Ohnefalsch-Richter "persuaded Mr. C. Watkins, then manager of the Ottoman Bank in Larnaka" to supply funds, and began in February 1885 at the Aphrodite sanctuary at Dali, ancient Idalion¹⁰. According to Stanley-Price, Ohnefalsch-Richter, as Superintendent of Excavations, had Watkins buy out the Government's share of the finds as well as the landowner's, so that only a few duplicates reached the Cyprus Museum¹³. Buchholz lists Watkins as permit-holder at four numbered sites on Ohnefalsch-Richter's map of Idalion, and a fifth as a joint project with Ferdinand Dümmler². Myres and Ohnefalsch-Richter list digs for him at Dali and Kutrapha/Nikitari¹¹. Of the 63 pounds that the Katydata season of May and June 1885 cost, Buchholz quotes Ohnefalsch-Richter as saying that Watkins paid 24⁴.

Frangissa and the lawsuit

Ohnefalsch-Richter found the site at Frangissa on 4 October 1885 and wrote that it promised "a most excellent money success beyond any doubt". Watkins sent 10 pounds to hire the land and applied for a permit, but he was in Beirut when Warren intervened^1,10. On his return he found his application stalled in Warren's office, and on 17 November it was refused¹.

Watkins sued in December 1885 for a third of the finds and a further third as damages. Ulick Burke appeared for him and cited Article 17 of the 1874 Law. The contract with the landowner, handed in to the court, disappeared during the hearing. Judge Walpole found for Warren, Watkins paid the costs and his appeal failed; Masson gives the final judgment as 21 January 1886, printed in the Cyprus Herald of 30 January^1,3. Walpole blamed Ohnefalsch-Richter, who in his words "ended by cheating the plaintiff"¹. Ohnefalsch-Richter later wrote that the court order removing the antiquities kept him from describing them in Nicosia¹⁰.

Warren received the credit for the finds in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology and at the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition, with "no mention of Charles Watkins"¹. Warren wrote on 1 February 1886 that Ohnefalsch-Richter "kept it secret from me but wrote to Mr. Watkins, as he paid him better"⁴. The sources differ on the court: Given and Masson place the case in the Larnaca District Court, while Ohnefalsch-Richter's own book says the Insular Court at Nicosia.

Polis and the Paris sale

Watkins held the permit for the dig at Polis tis Chrysochous, ancient Marion. Ohnefalsch-Richter's book quotes a published appreciation that the permit was made out in his name only¹⁰. Smith writes that a syndicate formed after Watkins's late-1885 application; work began on 25 February 1886 under the Government overseer Ernst Foot and ran to August, and 441 tombs were opened⁸. Salomon Reinach credited the success largely to Watkins's perseverance and his readiness to bear heavy costs, with up to 100 workmen employed at once¹². Ohnefalsch-Richter says the backers, "with Mr. Watkins at their head", aimed to make money, that after heavy outlay they cleared a modest net profit, and that his own pay was cut at the last minute though a small share of the profits was secured to him¹⁰.

Watkins wished to continue. The Limni site that he had Ohnefalsch-Richter lease went through John William Williamson to the Cyprus Exploration Fund, and Henry Bulwer sought to end speculative digging^8,10.

Where the finds went

The Government's third stayed in Nicosia and a few pieces went to the British Museum; Smith writes that Watkins exported most of the finds, and Myres and Ohnefalsch-Richter agree^8,11. About 300 Marion pieces were bought at the Paris sale of 1887, where the Louvre, Copenhagen and other cities also bought^7,8. About 500 objects from Idalion went to Berlin in 1887⁷. Reinach records a large Egyptianizing stele from Kition in Watkins's possession¹², and a Base Ring mother-and-child figurine now in the Boysset collection at Sydney had earlier belonged to him¹⁶. His dates of birth and death are not recorded.