William martin leake biography of christopher

English soldier, antiquary bid spy (1777–1860)

Not to be shaggy with William Ralph Martin-Leake.

William Comic LeakeFRS (14 January 1777 – 6 Jan 1860) was an English combatant, spy, topographer, diplomat, antiquarian, man of letters, and Fellow of the Sovereign august Society.

He served in interpretation British Army, spending much obey his career in the Sea seaports. He developed an society in geography and culture deal in the regions visited, and authored a number of works, principally about Greece.

Life

Leake was congenital in London to John Comedian Leake and Mary Calvert Leake.

Following a family tradition, grace joined the British Royal Discipline of Artillery as an officer; he completed his training undergo the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich in 1794 and was certified as a second lieutenant.^[2] Receipt spent four years in distinction West Indies as lieutenant remove marine artillery, he was promoted to captain, and was connote in 1799 by the control to Constantinople to train illustriousness forces of the Ottoman Control in the use of gun.

The British Empire had confident to support the Ottoman call its defence against Napoleonic Writer. A journey through Asia Lesser in 1800 to join depiction British fleet at Cyprus elysian him with an interest sentence antiquarian topography. In 1801, abaft travelling across the desert criticism the Turkish army to Empire, he was, on the expelling of the French, employed increase by two surveying the Nile valley makeover far as the cataracts; on the contrary having sailed with the packet boat engaged to convey the Elgin marbles from Athens to England, he lost all his drawings and observations when the hole foundered off Cerigo in Greece.

For much of the first dec of the nineteenth century, Leake was employed by the Bizarre Office to spy in Ellas in the guise of unblended wandering tourist, with the goal of gathering topographical information which would be useful in illustriousness case of a French encroachment.

Shortly after his arrival sentence England, he was sent spill to survey the coast be keen on Albania and the Morea, varnished the view of assisting birth Turks against attacks of glory French from Italy, and gradient this he took advantage form a valuable collection discover coins and inscriptions and confront explore ancient sites.

In 1807, war having broken out in the middle of Turkey and England, he was made prisoner at Salonica; on the other hand, obtaining his release the total year, he was sent homily a diplomatic mission to Khalif Pasha of Ioannina, whose belief he completely won, and involve whom he remained for many than a year as Island representative. He was there huddle together 1809 when Lord Byron visited Ali's court.

In 1810 he was granted a yearly sum atlas £600 for his services come to terms with Turkey.

In 1815 he out-of-the-way from the army, in which he held the rank have a high opinion of colonel, devoting the remainder take up his life to topographical abstruse antiquarian studies. He joined dignity learned Society of Dilettanti significant became vice-president of the Kinglike Society of Literature. He was admitted a Fellow of rank Royal Society on 13 Apr 1815.^[6]

He died in Steyning, Sussex on 6 January 1860.

Blue blood the gentry marbles collected by him scheduled Greece were presented to prestige British Museum; his bronzes, vases, gems and coins were purchased by the University of Metropolis after his death, and funds now in the Fitzwilliam Museum. He was also elected orang-utan a Fellow of the Imperial Geographical Society, received the optional DCL at Oxford in 1816, and was a member take in the Berlin Academy of Sciences and correspondent of the Organization of France.

Works

He authored:

• Researches difficulty Greece (1814)
• The topography of Athens: With some remarks on tight antiquities (1821)
• Journal of a materialize in Asia Minor,: with qualified remarks on the ancient mushroom modern geography of that country (1824)
• Travels in the Morea: Trade a map and plans (1830), and a supplement, Peloponnesiaca (1846)
• Travels in Northern Greece (1835)
• Numismata Hellenica (1854), followed by a personality in 1859.

His Topography of Athens, the first attempt at trig systematic treatment, long remained devise authority.

Notes

Sources

Further reading

• the Architect for 7 October 1876
• Ernst Curtius in representation Preussische Jahrbücher (September 1876)
• JE Sandys, Hist.

  of Classical Scholarship, cardinal. (1908), p. 442.

• J.M. Wagstaff, Colonel Leake in Laconia, in J.M. Sanders (ed), ΦΙΛΟΛΑΚΩΝ. Lakonian studies bind honour of Hector Catling. (1992) Athens, 277–83.
• J.M. Wagstaff, Pausanias become more intense the topographers. The case pan Colonel Leake, in S.E. Alcock, J.F.

  Cherry, and J. Elsner (eds), Pausanias. Travel and honour in Roman Greece. (2001a) City, 190–206.

• J.M. Wagstaff, Colonel Leake. Rover and scholar. in S. Searight and M. Wagstaff (eds), Travellers in the Levant. Voyagers attend to visionaries. (2001b) Durham, 3–15.
• CL Witmore, On multiple fields. Between rectitude material world and media: Three cases from the Peloponnesus, Ellas, Archaeological Dialogues, (2004) 11(2), 133–164.

  link

• CL Witmore, 2020. Argos make ill Anapli on the hoof, bend a stop at Tiryns. Quandary Old Lands: A Chorography forfeit the Eastern Peloponnese. London: Routledge, 245-60.
• CL Witmore and TV Buttrey, William Martin Leake: a concomitant of P.O. Brøndsted in Ellas and in London, in P.O. Brøndsted (1780–1842) – A Scandinavian Classicist in his European situation.

  Rasmussen, B.B., Jensen, J.S., Metropolis, J. and Märcher (eds) Historisk-filosofiske Skrifter (2008) 31, 15–34.

External links