Annie Dunman Hunt Ure 1893–1976 Portrait of Annie Dunman Hunt as a young student. A Short Biography of Annie Dunman Hunt Ure Boeotian Archaeologist, Honorary Doctor of Letters at the University of Reading, co-founder and Curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology. Ruth C Lloyd, first edition 2020 1 Front view of Stonycroft School, where Annie Dunman Hunt was Annie Dunman Hunt was born in Worces- schooled before she came to ter on 31st January 1893, the youngest of Reading. seven children of George Henry Hunt, a watchmaker and jeweller, and Elizabeth Ann Dunman. Her family were Wesleyan Methodists and pillars of the commu- nity in Worcester, so religion was a highly important part of her childhood. When their mother died of stomach cancer, Annie’s older sister May gave up her career as a music teacher to help raise Annie, who was only eight years old at the time. Throughout their lives, Annie and May were extremely close and kept in contact until May’s death in 1958. 2 Annie Dunman Hunt (front centre) among other student Annie was educated at Stoneycroft School representatives on the SCR at in Southport, a modest girls boarding University College, Reading. school. There she became friends with Nora Kershaw (later Chadwick), who became a historian of early medieval Britain. In 1911 Annie was accepted to read Classics on a minor scholarship at the University College, Reading. She was among the first batch of Classics gradu- ates under the first professor of the depart- ment, Percy Ure, who would later become her colleague and husband. While study- ing at Reading she resided at St. Andrew’s Hall, the college’s first female-only accommodation. 3 During her time at university, Annie was Lacking private means to support herself, an active member of the student body. she also took on a role as Assistant Librar- She became involved in several different ian at the university library, to pay her associations, such as the sculling, debate way. A year into her postgraduate stud- and Christian societies. She took on lead- ies, however, Professor Ure had become ership roles, as Vice-chairman of the Stu- burdened with teaching alone. The Clas- dent Representative Council and President sics Department’s male lecturers had of the Women’s Student Union. Annie took enlisted or been called to serve in the First an interest in woman’s suffrage, which World War and so Percy Ure asked Annie, was a burning issue at the time. Profes- who was both responsible and talented, sor Edith Morley, the first female profes- to give up her studies up to assist him in sor in Britain, helped to lead the way for lecturing. many female students at University Col- After assisting Percy Ure in teaching for lege, Reading, but Annie affirmed that she little under a year, Annie married him in ‘decided to make sure of a degree first and Monmouth, on 30th August 1918. Annie demonstrate later, if at all’. wrote anxiously to her sister May, how- Reading was not yet a university and ever, about marriage and worries about unable to award degrees when Annie her career. “To put it bluntly, Percy has took her final exams. Instead, her second- asked me to marry him and I have prom- class honours degree in Classics, awarded ised. At first, I hesitated because I know I in 1914, was from the University of Lon- am not in the least the sort of girl to make don. After this, she returned to her a good wife for any man, still less a man former school Stoneycroft, as a teacher. in his position. I thought of all our plan for During this period she taught herself Rus- the future and our home together and my sian, which would prove useful in 1917, career but May, I simply couldn’t resist.” when she returned to the University Col- Annie’s time as a student had ended and lege on a postgraduate scholarship to study her working and married life had begun. the finds of Greek vases on the coasts of Annie later said “there’s nothing to recall the Black Sea, which had been part of for some time except hard work; my hus- the Russian Empire. Professor Ure had band was teaching practically every hour strongly encouraged Annie to pursue this of every day and writing The Origin of scholarship. Tyranny in the night”. 4 In 1921 the Ures travelled together to In March 1921, Annie wrote to May of Greece to excavate at Rhitsona, in Boeo- their accommodation: “P & I live in a tia. Percy had previously excavated this place that is a cross between a stable and site, from 1908, with Professor Ronald Bur- a barn… Thanks to the liberal use of Keat- rows, then Professor of Greek at Univer- ings and Izal we are not unduly annoyed sity College, Cardiff (and later Principal of by insects. The rats are not so easily dis- Kings College, London, from 1913 until his posed of & keep us awake at night… It has death in 1920). Annie’s letters to her sister a door that will shut but no windows, but May and her meticulous diaries provide it is well ventilated by holes in the walls highly descriptive and technical day-to- and roof… Our staple food is shark and day accounts of the excavation. sheep’s milk”. Interior of the hut at Rhitsona in which the Ures resided and worked while on excavation. 5 Annie Dunman Hunt Ure (holding the box) on excavation at Rhitsona, among excavators and other local workers, with archaeologist Semni Papaspyridi seated on the ground in front of her. 6 The Ures excavated a necropolis at Rhit- several hundred vases were buried in a sin- sona that they thought was the ancient gle funeral they obviously would be, in Boeotian town of Mykalessos mentioned the main, the ordinary pottery in every- by Homer. According to Thucydides it day use.” The Ures were unusual for their was the site of a disastrous massacre by time, seeing the value of simple vases Thracians in 413 BC. When the Ures were that weren’t considered ‘works of art’ but in Greece, this ancient massacre site was told the stories of the ordinary people of well-known to the natives of neighbouring ancient Greece. towns for its potential for ancient Greek In the same speech Annie continued: artefacts. It attracted tomb robbers who “The vases came from all over the place, may have disrupted the graves previously, in especially large quantities from Athens but this also ensured the Ures that they and Corinth. One rare one from Chios would have plenty of highly enthusiastic and several others presumably from East workmen. Greek cities. Those obviously produced Speaking to the ‘Atrebates’ or Classics locally were at first thought to be Boeotian Society in 1968, Annie recalled the rich- as Mykalessos was in Boeotia. But it is ness of the graves that they excavated: very near the Euripos which is the frontier “The number of objects put into a single and recently I have come to the conclusion internment grave was often very large. In that, in the sixth century at any rate, when two graves we found over 400 each. Oth- anyone of importance died in Mykalessos, ers had 300 or 200 and a grave with a mere people would tend to go into Chalkis 100 we didn’t regard as a rich grave… to buy their funeral gifts, if they didn’t The bulk of the finds consisted of pottery content themselves with giving something vases and terracotta figurines. Only a few second-hand – a vase that happened to be of them were works of art. It would be hanging on the wall for instance – which unreasonable to expect them to be. When I think they generally did.” 7 Between them, Percy and Annie served the University for nearly 100 years and produced 6 books (three of them on the Rhitsona finds) and over 80 articles. 8 The Ures left the material that they Annie served as its Curator until her excavated at Rhitsona to the emerging death. Four years later University College, Greek state and some of it was later dis- Reading gained its charter and became played in the Thebes Museum. When the University of Reading, which helped they returned to Reading, the Ures com- bring more visitors and donors to the bined the knowledge they had acquired museum. Throughout her life Annie at Rhitsona and a small collection of vases added to it with more purchases and Percy had acquired early in his career donations. Currently the museum houses with Egyptian antiquities and other ca. 4000 objects, including the fourth gifts already at the college to form the largest collection of Greek ceramics in Museum of Greek Archaeology in 1922. the UK. Interior of the Museum of Greek Archaeology (later named for the Ures) on the occasion of its installation in 1960. 9 After they established the Museum of In raising her two children, Annie took Greek Archaeology at the university, on all the house management in order Annie and Percy filled their years with to make Percy’s life as worry free as visits to other museums to critique their possible: she meticulously managed displays and gather ideas for their own finances, house and servants. Despite museum. Annie travelled extensively their frequent travels, Annie and Percy around Europe in this time, often alone always kept in contact with their child- while Percy was working. In 1924 Annie ren; they sent daily postcards to Bill gave birth to a girl, Jean, and after another and Jean telling them where they were two years a boy, Bill.