About the George Finlay Papers
The George Finlay Papers contain materials created by and related to the British Historian and Philhellene George Finlay, his father John Finlay, Greek-American Philhellene George Jarvis, and British Philhellene Captain Frank Abney Hastings, dating from 1791 to 1949. Most of the collection consists of George Finlay’s meticulous records of his travels, personal and official correspondence, his personal expenditures, copious memoranda on strategy and on military and political organisation, journal entries, maps, facetiae, scrapbooks, personal notes on people—Greeks and others—and on revolutionary events, newspaper cuttings mainly on Greece and international affairs, as well as Finlay’s original manuscripts of the History of the Greek Revolution (1861) as well as corrected proofs of Finlay’s other published works.
Also included are the papers of Finlay’s father, John, two journals of Greek American philhellene, George Jarvis, and those of Finlay’s fellow British philhellene, Captain Frank Abney Hastings. The Hastings papers, which Finlay purchased in 1830, include personal and official correspondence, ship’s logs, notes that he took on board or ashore, as well as memoranda on strategy and on the naval organisation of the revolutionary forces. Collectively, these records reveal a great deal about the character, motivations, ideas, as well as the military and political judgements of these British individuals, as well as of many others, both British and Greek, with whom they interacted during the Greek War of Independence as well as many of Finlay's other interests, such as Classical and Byzantine history, natural history and politics.
Programme of the Deligeorges Cabinet (Athens, 2 November 1865) (in Greek and French).
Copy of Ἐλπίς for 3 September 1863 (in Greek).
Parliamentary resolutions presented to King Otho by A. Koumoundouros (Athens, 4 August 1856) (in Greek).
Subsection article 3 of the 'Community of Corfu' (Corfu, 22 March 1864) (in Greek).
Copy of Ἀναγέννησις for 21 March 1864 (in Greek).
Copy of L'Observateur d'Athènes for 27 October 1853 (in French).
Pages 67-70 of Athens newspaper of 1856 (in French).
Parliamentary resolutions presented to King Otho by P. Argyropoulos (Athens, 8 June 1855) (in Greek).
Treaty of Commerce, etc. between Greece and the Ottoman Empire-Koundouriotis (27 May 1855) (in French).
Document addressed to King Otho concerning the charges for hot baths in Kythnos (Athens, 18 July 1838) (in Greek).
2 coloured portraits of Lloyd George and 2 coloured portraits of Lord Kitchener distributed in Athens during the 1914-18 war as propaganda.
Black mottle boards, dark crimson calf spine, pasted on front cover: 'Picture of Greece 1866: Statistics of Turkey and its nationalities', paginated, pp. 1-192, handwritten, bound.
Includes notes on brigandage, arbitrary conduct of Government, murders, affairs of Crete, ethnography of European Turkey.
Paper covers, printed cutting pasted up and bound.
An article by George Finlay from the Saturday Review, 11 April 1869, and a duplicate of FIN/GF/E/55.
On the front flyleaf is a note by George Finlay:
'The author was induced to write this paper from observing the general ignorance of the historical side of the ecclesiastical dispute between the Greeks and Bulgarians manifested both by the Greek and English newspaper writers in the east. Athens 25 March 1869. George Finlay.'
At the end 6 notes on the sources are appended in George Finlay's hand.
Blue mottle, faded cloth spine, gilt lettering on spine 'Statistics and Foreign Affairs and Literature', unpaginated, except for pp. 1-7, bound.
A scrap-book containing a few pasted-up cuttings (pp. 1-7) and many loose ones for 1869-72. Most of these do not deal with Greek or east Mediterranean affairs but illustrate George Finlay's wide range of interest (e.g. reviews of Forster on Dickens, Mrs. Oliphant on George II, cuttings on the Fenian troubles).
Printed report, boards, paper cover, 351 pp. Ὑπουργεῖον Ἐξωτερικῶν.
Ἔγγραφα κατατεθέντα εἰς τὴν Βουλὴν περὶ τῆς ὑποθέσεως τῶν ἐκβολάδων καὶ σκωριῶν Λαυρίου 1872-3
A series of letters and telegrams (all in both Greek and French) on the question of the Laurion mines and concessions, June 1872-March 1873.
Miscellaneous notes. Unbound, handwritten except for FIN/GF/E/54/6.
Characters': rough notes mainly on Greek or British diplomats or political figures (e.g. Sir E. Lyons, Mavrocordatos, King Otho, Thomas Gordon) .
Trade of Greece with Trieste 1843.'
Copy of an article, headed ' "On the change which the treaty of 1871 closing the Dardanelles to ships of war will create on the policy of Great Britain written during the mission of Server pasha to Egypt when there was supposed to be danger of the Porte attacking the Khedive" inserted in "The Times" of the 19th Oct long after it was written for it was sent to England in July'.
A number of random bibliographical notices.
Printed article (in Greek) from Νέα Πανδώρα 18, 367-76, on Saint-Marc Girardin's book on Greece (see FIN/GF/E/49/1).
Water-supply of Athens' (in Greek, with rough notes in English).
Letter to The Times on use of chloroform as a treatment for cholera. 16 June, n. y.
Green board, printed cuttings pasted up, bound, paginated by George Finlay pp. 1-23. Cuttings from the Saturday Review with George Finlay's corrections and addenda.
Listed by George Finlay thus:
(1) 31 December 1870. 'The Eastern Question'.
(2) 17 April 1869. 'The Bulgarian Question', with notes in George Finlay's hand [duplicate in FIN/GF/E/50].
(3) 'Brigandage in Greece.' '27.3.71.' added in George Finlay's hand on p. 17.
Note added by George Finlay in this index though the articles are not pasted up here:
'Other articles inserted in the Saturday Review
6 February 1869. Constitutional Government in the East.
8 January 1870. Panslavism and Panhellenism.'
10 printed pamphlets, unbound.
P. Sophianopoulos, Le Progrès (´Η Προóδος) ou la Restauration de la Méditerranée, nouvelles orientales, Athens, 1840.
Ἀρχαῖα ἱστορικὰ γεγονóτα τῆς οἰκογενείας τῶν κομήτων Κλαδαίων ἀπό τὰ 1366 [corrected from 1330] μέχρι τὰ 1803, Athens, 1872, followed by Italian and English translation (list of historical documents on the Kladas family).
G. Marcoras, The Case of the Ionio British Pensions. (printed for private circulation), 14 February 1865 and sent to George Finlay with a letter in French from Corfu 8 June 1863 from 'Georges Marcoras'.
Notes on the Recent Murders by Brigands in Greece, London, 1870. ['John Gennadius' pencilled on copy].
Thomas Gordon (transl.), A Short History of the Secret Motives which Induced the Deceased Alemdar Mustafa Pasha . . . to Depose Sultan Mustafa . . . in . . . 1807, translated from the Turkish by Thomas Gordon, printed privately in Constantinople, n.d. [1834], [note on front flysheet by George Finlay 'given me by General Gordon the translator January 1836'].
Thomas Gordon, Account of Two Visits to the Anopaea or Highlands above Thermopylae . . . 1837, Athens, 1838, 12 pp.+map.
A. Theodorou, Ποίημα διὰ τὸν ἔκπτωτον Ὄθωνα, Athens, 1863.
Zacharenia Grammaticopoulou, Les Orages de ma vie, translated from the Greek by A. G. Emar, Athens, 1888. [not George Finlay's].
I. Speliotakis and others, ᾽Ενθύμιον. [articles and letters on Greek affairs including the Laurion mines question 1871-3].
D. S. Mavrocordato, `Υπομνημάτιον περὶ ἐκπαιδεύσεως τοῦ λαοῦ, 2nd edn., Athens, 1872.
Green mottle boards, green cloth spine, indexed alphabetically, handwritten with loose cuttings and 1 letter, bound.
Brief notes arranged alphabetically and mostly relating to modern Greece, with some cuttings from Greek newspapers and 1 letter dated 'Athens 19 November' (from W. B. Smyth thanking him for the loan of a book).
Handwritten, unbound octavo quires, paginated by George Finlay.
A collection of papers, scraps, and notes labelled '"Progress" and Miscellaneous Memoranda'.
Notes on 'Democratic Monarchy in Greece'
The prospects of George I King of the Greeks
Prospects of the new Dynasty on Greece' (undated). In paper enclosure by George Finlay.
Events in Greece, November, 1865'. Paper enclosure by George Finlay.
Nine printed pamphlets on miscellaneous subjects
S. Comnos, Über Nummerierungs-Systeme für wissenschaftlich geordnete Bibliotheken, Athens, 1874.
E. A. Freeman, Address to the Historical Section of the Annual Meeting of the Institute Held at Cardiff, n.d., 19 pp. [on the value of local history to the general historian], with a cutting from the Pall Mall Gazette of a letter by Freeman on the Theory of Annexation (16 February 1871).
Rules and Catalogue of the English Circulating Library, Athens, 1856, 20 pp. and appendix.
Alexander MacGregor, Disputatio inauguralis de morae indictivae, in peste arcenda, utilitate . . . , Edinburgh, 1833.
E. Kastorchis, Περὶ τῆς ἀρχῆθεν κοινωνίας τῶν Ἑλλήνων πρὸς τοὺς Ἰταλοὺς καὶ ᾽Ρωμαίους καὶ τῆς ἐντεῦθεν ἐπενεργείας αὐτῶν πρὸς ἐκπολιτισμὸν τούτων, Athens, 1872, 139 pp. Bound up with this is an address (in Greek) in memory of the Patriarch Gregory V, with a poem, by A. Valaoritis.
T. G. Orphanidis, pamphlet (in Greek) on the Natural History Museum of the University of Athens, Athens, 1865. (uncut).