Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Colonial official · Lawyer / legislator · Collector

William Haynes-Smith

Sir William Frederick Haynes-Smith

1839–1928 · United Kingdom

High Commissioner of Cyprus from 1898 to 1904 credited with steering the 1905 Antiquities Law into being, who owned a silver plate assigned to the first Lambousa treasure.

Biography

Sir William Haynes-Smith, High Commissioner of Cyprus from April 1898 to October 1904, is credited by Kiely and Merrillees with having "managed to steer the 1905 antiquities law into being"1,3. He and his predecessor Sendall, they write, struggled to reform the Cyprus Museum and establish its legal basis; the law itself was passed under Sir Charles King-Harman1. He left the island in October 19043. He was born on 26 June 1839 and died on 18 December 19284.

He also owned a silver plate, 135 mm in diameter, acquired in Cyprus. R. S. Merrillees assigns it provisionally to the first Lambousa treasure, together with plates now in the Walters Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum. It was shown at the Society of Antiquaries on 10 May 1906 and published by Dalton, passed to Mrs Paul Fagan of San Francisco, and was given by her to Dumbarton Oaks in 19602.

Life and work

  1. 1898–1904
    Struggled, like his predecessor Sendall, to reform the Cyprus Museum and give it a legal basis; steered the 1905 antiquities law into being, though it was passed formally under his successor Sir Charles King-Harman.

    Kiely & Merrillees 2012, p. 20

  2. April 1898 – April 1899
    High Commissioner (from April 1898) throughout the British Museum's purchase of the first Lambousa treasure (July 1898 to April 1899); Merrillees says nothing links him to it, and concludes only that 'all those concerned in the Island Administration in Cyprus and the British Museum' turned a blind eye to the treasure's removal (p. 401).

    Merrillees 2009, p. 401Tatton-Brown 2001, p. 170

  3. 1899
    Letters to the British Museum on excavations in Cyprus, 14 Feb 1899 and 17 Feb 1900 (BM Correspondence: Excavations in Cyprus).

    Tatton-Brown 2001, p. 170

  4. May 1904
    Agreed an exchange with John Garstang, who wrote to him from Cairo on 1 May 1904; the Cyprus Museum received two cases of Egyptian pottery from Beni Hasan in spring 1904.

    Cairo

  5. July 1904
    Appointed an interim Cyprus Museum committee of three (Wilfred Collet, George Smith, George Jeffery) after finding the committee had lapsed.

    Cyprus

  6. 10 May 1906
    A silver plate (diam. 135 mm) that Haynes-Smith had acquired in Cyprus while High Commissioner, provisionally assigned to the first Lambousa treasure, was exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries on 10 May 1906 and published separately by Dalton; it later passed to Mrs Paul Fagan of San Francisco, who gave it to Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, in 1960.

    LondonMerrillees 2009, p. 395Dalton 1900

Connections

4 people
Mrs Paul FaganJohn GarstangGeorge JefferyCharles Anthony King-Harm…William Haynes-Smith
Sales & giftsScholarshipColleagues

Sales, gifts & bequests

Scholarship

Colleagues & contacts

Objects

  • Silver plate, diam. 135 mm, provisionally assigned to the first Lambousa treasure

    From Lambousa (assigned)Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC1898–1904Merrillees 2009, p. 395

Sources

  1. 1.T. Kiely, R. S. Merrillees (2012). “The archaeological interests of Samuel Brown, government engineer, and his circle of acquaintances in late nineteenth-century Cyprus”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 42, 245-272. Online
  2. 2.R. S. Merrillees (2009). “The modern history of the first Lambousa treasure of Byzantine silverware from Cyprus”. The Antiquaries Journal 89, 389-403. Online
  3. 3.Veronica Tatton-Brown (ed.) (2001). Cyprus in the 19th Century AD: Fact, Fancy and Fiction. Oxford, Oxbow.
  4. 4.“William Haynes-Smith”. Wikipedia (English). Wikimedia Foundation. Online
  5. 5.Ormonde M. Dalton (1900). “A Byzantine silver treasure from the district of Kerynia, Cyprus, now preserved in the British Museum”. Archaeologia 57, 159-174. Online