[727] RAMSAY, SIR WILLIAM MITCHELL (1851-1939), classical scholar and archaeologist and the foremost authority of his day on the topography, antiquities, and history of Asia Minor in ancient times, was born in Glasgow 15 March 1851, the Youngest son of Thomas Ramsay, by his wife, Jane, daughter of William Mitchell, both of Alloa. Ramsay's family had been bred to the law for three generations, his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather having all been advocates, his grandfather also procurator-fiscal of Clackmannanshire. His father died in 1857, and the family returned to its native shire to settle in a rural home near Alloa. In his education his eldest brother and his maternal Uncle, Andrew Mitchell, of Alloa, took active interest. From the Gymnasium, Old Aberdeen, he went on to the university of Aberdeen and then won a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford: there he obtained a first class in classical moderations (1874) and in literae humaniores (1876). In his second year at Oxford (1874), he was enabled by the generosity of his maternal uncle to spend the long vacation at Goettingen, studying Sanskrit under a great scholar, Theodor Benfey. This was a critical period of his life: then for the first time, in his own words, he 'gained some insight into modern methods of literary investigation', and his 'thoughts ever since turned towards the border lands between European and Asiatic civilization'. A further stimulus was received from Henry Jardine Bidder, of St. John's, a man of incisive mind and speech, who first opened his eyes to the true spirit of Hellenism and so helped to fit him for the work which he had in view.

The opportunity of embarking on what Ramsay desired to make his lifework -- exploration in Asia Minor for the study of its antiquities and history, with special reference to the influence of Asia on Greek civilization and the Greco-Roman administration -- was afforded by his election in 1880 to an Oxford studentship for travel and research in Greek lands. At Smyrna he had the good fortune to meet (Sir) C. W. Wilson [q.v.], then British consul-general in Anatolia, who advised him to explore the unknown inland regions of the country and in whose company he made two long journeys in 1881-1882. So started an exploration that was to be continued, save for one break (1891-1899), until 1914. Further funds were provided by his election to a research fellowship at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1882, and by the establishment of an Asia Minor Exploration Fund supported by individuals and societies. From 1885 to 1886 he held the newly created Lincoln and Merton professorship of classical archaeology and art at Oxford and became a fellow of Lincoln College; he was then appointed regius professor of humanity at Aberdeen, where he remained until 1911. After his retirement he continued to devote himself to Anatolian studies up to the very end of his long life.

Ramsay was knighted in 1906 and received many academic distinctions: three honorary fellowships of Oxford colleges (Exeter, 1898, Lincoln, 1899, and St. John's, 1912) and honorary degrees from six British universities and from New York, Bordeaux, and Marburg. He was an original fellow of the British Academy [728] but resigned in 1924. In 1893 he was awarded the gold medal of Pope Leo XIII, and in 1906 the Victoria medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He paid several visits to the United States of America to deliver courses of lectures, most of which were afterwards published. Ramsay married first, in 1878, Agnes Dick (died 1927), second daughter of the Rev. William Marshall, of Leith, and granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. Andrew Marshall, of Kirkintilloch, Dumbartonshire, one of the Original Seceders from the Church of Scotland. She shared with her husband the discomforts of travel in Turkey and aided him in his work. By her he had two sons, the younger of whom was killed in action in 1915, and four daughters. He married secondly, in 1928, Phyllis Eileen, daughter of Alfred Ernest Thorowgood, of Old Bosham, Sussex, who survived him. He died at Bournemouth 20 April 1939. Ramsay's title to distinction is the immense advance, based upon a rich harvest of new evidence, which he achieved in the knowledge of the geography and topography of Asia Minor and of its political, social, and cultural (including religious) history. In his Historical Geography of Asia Minor (1890) and in subsequent articles he worked out a topographical scheme which, while leaving much to be settled by discovery, laid a sure foundation for historical study. Topography and history are combined in his local history of Phrygia (The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 1895,1897), uncompleted for lack of adequate evidence. The value of his historical work as a whole, largely scattered in journals and elsewhere (listed down to 1923 in Anatolian Studies presented to him), cannot be set forth here. Most widely known are his contributions to early Christian history, beginning with The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170 (1898) and continuing in a series of books devoted mainly to St. Paul and St. Luke. His basic contention, supported by a wealth of argument, that St. Luke is a first-class historian of the first century A.D., has won wide acceptance, although the statements in the passage dating the birth of Christ (ii. 1-2) present problems which still elude a favourable solution. Another thesis which Ramsay firmly established is that the Galatians to whom St. Paul addressed his Epistle were those, not of Galatia proper, but of the southern part of the Roman province. The value of his New Testament studies is enhanced by the fact that he approached the subject, not as a theologian, but as a Roman historian versed in the working of Roman institutions in the provinces and possessing an intimate knowledge of the country which figured so prominently in the early history of the Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[Autobiographical data contained in Sir W. M. Ramsay's own publications; The Times 22 April 1939; private information; personal knowledge.] J. G. C. ANDERSON.