Marlborough and the BSA

A series of BSA students had been educated at Marlborough, including one director.

Two contemporaries at Marlborough were Hercules Henry West (1856-1937) [1871-75] and Roandeu Albert Henry Bickford-Smith (1859-1916) [1871-74]. West would have been taught by Francis Storr, and both by William Mordaunt Furneaux. Both were admitted to the BSA around the age of 40 [West in 1896/97 and Bickford-Smith in 1899/1900] and long after the completion of their studies at Trinity College, Cambridge.

One of the key influences for the remaining Marlborough students is likely to have been Lewis Edward Upcott, assistant master at Marlborough from 1875-1911 (and replacing Storr). He would have taught Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) [1881-87], Richard McGillivray Dawkins (1871-1955) [1884-90], John Winter Crowfoot (1873-1959) [1887-92], and John Percival Droop (1882-1963). (Of these, only Crowfoot went to Oxford.) Upcott had been educated at Sherborne and had won a classical scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He had an interest in Greek archaeology and wrote An introduction to Greek sculpture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887).

A further generation of Marlborough students would have been influenced by Alexander Cradock Bolney Brown ("Sweaty B.") who was assistant master at Marlborough (1908-42). He had been educated at Winchester and then New College, Oxford. During his year at the BSA (1905/06) he excavated in Boeotia. His impact on archaeology is unclear as some his earliest pupils would have served in the First World War.