Viscount Mersey

Viscount Mersey ran the Cyprus Committee, a London body whose twelve founding members included seven Old Etonians¹. Its fundraising, together with the 1934 Carnegie grant to the Cyprus Museum, let the Cyprus government avoid spending its own money, and the Committee also paid the expenses of Peers's visit after the government refused. Ormsby-Gore and Hill sat on it¹.

When John Hilton was appointed Director of Antiquities, Mersey invited him to a weekend at his country house; the guests all had Cyprus connections, and Hilton later said that "this was not my world"¹. In 1935 the Committee provided £1,200 for work on the monuments of Famagusta, and Hilton seconded Theophilus Mogabgab to the task¹.

Mersey's relations with Hilton became part of the dispute that ended in Hilton's dismissal. A view recorded on the Governor's side blamed "Lord Mersey's action in treating Hilton as if he belonged to the Cyprus Committee", and Michael Stanley-Price adds that Mersey "was as guilty as Hilton in not observing protocol but should have known better"¹.