BSA Students and Manchester University

The first BSA student in Manchester was J.H. Hopkinson who moved from Birmingham in 1904 to become lecturer in classical archaeology at Victoria University (1904-14). He was also the warden of Hulme Hall, one of the halls of residence built in 1907. Hopkinson had strong links with Manchester as his father Professor (Sir) Alfred Hopkinson had been principal of Owens College (from 1898), and then a vice-chancellor of the newly formed Victoria University (1900-1913). The department was strengthened in 1906 by the appointment of Alexander C.B. Brown as assistant lecturer in classics (1906-08). He had just completed a year at the BSA.

In 1908 Ronald Montagu Burrows (1867-1920), who had excavated in Greece with Percy N. Ure at Rhitsona, was appointed Hulme Professor of Greek. He resigned in 1913 to become principal of King’s College, London, and was replaced by William M. Calder (1881-1960) who had been admitted as a student at the BSA (1907/08) and had subsequently studied in Berlin and Paris. Calder, who had studied with William Ramsay at Aberdeen before moving to Christ Church, Oxford (see 'Scotland and the BSA'), was involved with Ramsay’s epigraphic surveys in Asia Minor. He also held the position of lecturer in Christian epigraphy at Manchester. In 1930 he moved to Edinburgh as professor of Greek. T. Eric Peet also moved to Manchester in 1913 as lecturer in Egyptology (1913-23). J.H. Hopkinson resigned in 1914 and was ordained deacon in the Church of England serving a first curacy in Colne (1914).

After the First World War the department was joined by Max Laistner as assistant lecturer in Classics (July 1919-21). He had been at the BSA (1912-14) and then lectured at Birmingham (1914) and Belfast (1915) before war service in the Middlesex Regiment and the Ministry of Labour.