BURROWS, RONALD MONTAGU Brit ish scholar and archaeologist, was born at Rugby and educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford. While assistant to Prof. Gilbert Murray in the Greek department at Glasgow univer sity, 1891-97, he started his excavations at Pylos and Sphacteria which had the important result of vindicating Thucyd ides as an accurate historian. From 1898 to 1908 he was pro fessor of Greek at University college, Cardiff, and from 1908 to 1913 at Manchester university. In 1905 and 1907 he excavated tombs at Mycalessus (Rhitsona) in Boeotia, thereby systematiz ing for the first time the study of Boeotian archaeology, and in 1907 published The Discoveries in Crete. From 1913 until his death he was principal of king's college, London, being the first layman to hold that post. From 1913 onwards he was the leading British philhellene, having "discovered" Venizelos in 1912, and being invited by Venizelos during the World War (i 9i 6) to be the semi-official diplomatic representative in London of the Greek Provisional Government. In 1915 the British cabinet adopted his plan for bringing Greece into the war by the offer of Cyprus. Confidant and adviser of Venizelos, he wrote and lectured exten sively on Near Eastern political problems. At King's college, he founded the many chairs concerned with European history and literature, and the School of Slavonic Studies.
See George Glasgow, Ronald Burrows: A Memoir, with foreword by E. K. Venizelos.