Robert Pashley (4 September 1805 – 29 May 1859) was a 19th-century English traveller, lawyer and economist.
Pashley was born in
York
York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...
and he studied at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
. Distinguished in mathematics and Classics, in 1830 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity at his first sitting. In 1832 he took his MA degree, and as a travelling Fellow undertook a journey in Italy,
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
,
Asia Minor
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
and
Crete
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
, of which he published his two-volume ''Travels in Crete''. His work is considered a classic of writing on the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, with his detailed observations on local geography, customs, and social issues.
In 1837, he was
called to the Bar
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...
by the
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...
. He lost his valuable library and antiquities in fire at Temple in 1838. He was appointed as a
queen's counsel
A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...
in 1851
He stood for Parliament in the
1852 general election for
King's Lynn
King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is north-east of Peterborough, north-north-east of Cambridg ...
but was not elected.
In 1853 he married Marie, the only daughter of Baron Von Lauer of Berlin. They had three children.
He published two works on economics: ''On Pauperism'' (1854), and ''Observations on the government bill for abolishing the Removal of the Poor'' (1854).
He died in 1859 at 16,
Manchester Square, London and was buried at the
Kensal Green cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of North Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in P ...
.
Studies of Crete
Pashley was one of the foremost researchers of
Cretan
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
culture in the first half of the nineteenth century. Pashley was the first one to work out the location of the ancient buried city of
Cydonia, relying only on ancient literature, without the aid of
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
recovery. In his travel to Crete in 1830 he observed that Greek was the common language of the island that was then part of the Ottoman Empire, even though a substantial part of the population was then Muslim.
[Molly Greene, ''A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean'', 2000, Princeton University Press, 228 pages ]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pashley, Robert
1805 births
1859 deaths
English economists
English travel writers
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge