Garnet Joseph Wolseley

Sir Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833 to 1913), later Viscount Wolseley and Field-Marshal, landed at Larnaca on 23 July 1878 as the first British High Commissioner of Cyprus. From 14 September 1878 he could legislate^1,4. Two days after he arrived, Charles Newton reported to the British Museum Trustees, who asked that the Government reserve its rights to antiquities; the request reached Wolseley through the Foreign Office⁴. In August 1878 he proclaimed a ban on all excavation by anyone, applying the Ottoman law of 1874. Perrot said it was made on formal orders from England, and it lapsed when Wolseley left in May 1879^1,2. In December 1878 the Foreign Office told the Trustees that Wolseley had asked for an archaeologist to dig for the Government, but Lord Salisbury would not fund it; Newton recommended R. P. Pullan⁴.

His diary says that Alessandro Palma di Cesnola had been told distinctly not to excavate. Wolseley sent Henry Brackenbury to prosecute him at Larnaca for digging at Enkomi and Ormidia. Cesnola was fined four liras, which Wolseley at once remitted, and the antiquities seized at the two sites were confiscated¹. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter wrote that Wolseley stopped the digging by force and jailed Cesnola and his workmen⁸. Reinach says Ohnefalsch-Richter applied to Wolseley for a permit from 1878 and waited two years, while Marangou says Wolseley gave him a special permit^6,7.

C. T. Newton arrived in April 1879 and stayed a few days at Government House near Nicosia. Wolseley went with him to Hilarion, and Newton thanked him for his "cordial assistance"⁵. In May 1879 Wolseley left the island⁴.