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 with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

and he studied at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

. 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,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

and

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

, 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, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

, 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 associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

. He lost his valuable library and antiquities in fire at Temple in 1838. He was appointed as a

queen's counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

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 located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...

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 Manchester Square is an 18th-century garden square in Marylebone, London. Centred north of Oxford Street it measures internally north-to-south, and across. It is a small Georgian predominantly 1770s-designed instance in central London; co ...

, London and was buried at the

Kensal Green cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederic ...

Studies of Crete

Pashley was one of the foremost researchers of

Cretan Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, an ...

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 Cydonia may refer to: Music * ''Cydonia'' (album), a 2001 album by The Orb * "Cydonia", a track by heavy metal band Crimson Glory from '' Astronomica'' Places and jurisdictions * Kydonia or Cydonia, an ancient city state on Crete, at modern ...

, relying only on ancient literature, without the aid of

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

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