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The Greek Boys at Borough Road during the War of Independence

George F. Bartle a
a
British and Foreign School Society Archives, West London Institute of Higher Education,
Online Publication Date: 01 January 1988

To cite this Article Bartle, George F.(1988)'The Greek Boys at Borough Road during the War of Independence',Journal of Educational

Administration and History,20:1,1 11

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/0022062880200101
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0022062880200101

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The Greek Boys at Borough Road during

the War of Independence
The Greek revolt against Ottoman domination, which broke out in the Morea
in April 1821, was greeted in Western Europe with great enthusiasm. Philhellenes
in Britain and on the continent looked forward to a revival of the glories of
ancient Hellas. Appeals for active assistance to the Greeks were expressed in
public meetings and through the press, particularly by the radicals and philanthropists, who saw an opportunity for putting their theories of improvement into
practice. In February 1823 a delegate from the provisional Greek government,
which had decided to raise funds in western Europe, arrived in London and a
committee was established with the Benthamite, John Bowring, as secretary, 'to
consider the best means of promoting the cause of the Greeks' and opened a
subscription list to provide funds for a loan.1 This loan, it was hoped, would
not only enable the struggling Greeks to obtain military and economic aid but
would provide the means for the rapid diffusion of useful knowledge through
printing presses and other means of education, including the setting up of schools
and the training of schoolmasters.
One of the most energetic enthusiasts for the Greek cause was the Quaker
philanthropist, William Allen, who became secretary to the 'Committee of
Friends in favour of the Indigent Greeks'. Allen, amongst his many other
activities, held the position of treasurer to the British and Foreign School Society,
formed in 1814 by supporters of Joseph Lancaster's system of'mutual instruction'
(of which Allen had been one of the earliest advocates) for the spread of popular
education at home and abroad on undenominational though scriptural lines/
Allen had visited Greece and the British ruled Ionian Islands on his return from
a tour of Russia in 1819 and had then lost no opportunity of advocating
Lancasterian schools. 'If any one country on the face of the earth needs a system
of universal education more than another, it is Greece,' he wrote.3 Even before
the revolt against Turkish domination, sporadic attempts were made by a young
Greek, named Cleobulos, who had studied the monitorial system in Paris, to set
up Lancasterian schools in the country.4 After the outbreak of revolt, however,
enthusiasm was much greater and 10,000 was raised by the Society of Friends
for the relief of distress in Greece and the promotion of education.5 In March
1823 a meeting took place between Allen and Bowring which was also attended
by a naval captain, Edward Blaquiere, a friend of Bowring's and an enthusiastic
Benthamite, who was about to sail to Greece and promised to put Allen in
communication with the provisional government. 'Here I also met Andrias
Luriottes, the deputy of the government of Corinth,' Allen noted in his diary,
'who is going back with Blaquiere. I impressed upon him the subject of education
and engaged on the part of the committee that if they would send over two lads
of good talents to learn the plan at the Borough Road, it should cost them
nothing either for board or clothing. Luriottes was quite delighted.'6

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EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND HISTORY

Allen's offer to educate two young Greeks was made in the same year that
two Greek boys from Cyprus (which was still part of the Ottoman Empire) who
had been purchased from a slave market at Smyrna by an English traveller,
reached England and were accepted free of charge at the Society's training
institution in Borough Road, Southwark 'through the kindness of two benevolent
individuals'. These were Georgius Constantine (alias Constantinidis) aged seventeen and Demetrius Pieridi, aged fourteen, neither of them able to speak English
when they were admitted though, according to the Society's Annual Report, after
a year able to 'read fluently and write correctly'.7 Constantinidis, who assisted
for a short time in the Borough Road monitorial boys' school after 'learning the
system', was sent to Greece in 1825 in the company of a Scottish philhellene and
scholar, Edward Masson, who was going out to the Morea to establish a school.
They took with them 'slates and other school apparatus sufficient for 200
children'.8 The younger boy, Pieridi, remained in the Society's care for several
more years. Meanwhile, in 1824, two more Greek boys, described as Nicholas
Cacuratto, from Cephalonia in the Ionian Islands and Stephen Casanova, a native
of Scio, 'who had been rescued from the Turks just as they were about to kill
him', were taken under the patronage of the B.F.S.S. committee.9 The first of
these returned to Greece after a year and a half at Borough Road and eventually
became a private teacher in Cephalonia, where British administration preserved
the inhabitants from Turkish attack.10 It is not known what happened to Casanova.
By 1824 ominous signs of internal divisions amongst the Greeks were becoming
only too apparent, whilst the death of Lord Byron, who had gone to Greece at
the request of the London Greek Committee, created a feeling of disillusion and
disappointment in public opinion in England. The efforts to negotiate a Greek
loan in London were proving difficult both because of disagreements between
the London Greek Committee and the Greek government and its delegates as to
the terms of the loan and because subscribers were unwilling to risk their money
in view of the uncertain situation in Greece. When Blaquiere, therefore, reached
Corinth in the summer of 1824, he urged the provisional government to
create more confidence in the loan by patching up their discords, by providing
opportunities for commerce and by taking advantage of an offer from the London
Greek Committee to educate up to twenty Greek boys in England as earnest of
the serious concern of the Greek government for the spread of education in
Greece." Arrangements were consequently made, largely as a result of Blaquiere's
own efforts, to obtain ten Greek boys, of ages varying between nine and fourteen,
together with an older youth, for conveyance to England in the autumn of 1824.
One boy died on the journey but the others arrived in the Medway in October
on board Blaquiere's ship, the Amphitrite, the first vessel to reach British shores
bearing a Greek flag. The boys, described in a contemporary magazine as 'the
sons of some of the most distinguished Greek chiefs', attracted considerable
attention in London. 'Two of them,' reported the New Monthly, 'lately visited
the Stock Exchange and were received with loud cheers by all present. The
costume in which they are attired is of a very costly description and excited
much admiration.'12 One of the immediate effects of this demonstration of Greek
enthusiasm for education was to raise the value of Greek bonds, which had been

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THE GREEK BOYS AT BOROUGH ROAD

16 per cent below par in September, by about 12 per cent. It was decided by an
agreement between the London Greek Committee and the B.F.S.S. to send them
all in the first place to the Borough Road school to learn English, probably with
the assistance of the young Cypriots, and, as the B.F.S.S. itself was in debt, a
special appeal was launched (a copy of which was published in Blaquiere's account
of his visit to Greece) for funds to educate seven of them at the Society's expense.
The other two were to be educated by private benefactors. The prospectus
referred to the two Cypriot youths who had arrived in 1823 and the two other
Greeks 'whom providential circumstance has led to this country'. It went on to
mention the 'seven lads brought over by Captain Blaquiere' and added that 'only
a part are likely to be prepared for Teachers, the others are destined for various
employments; but their education in England, if rightly directed, may have an
important influence on their countrymen not only in cementing the future friendly
alliance of the two countries but in advancing the moral improvement of Greece'.
The appeal announced that 'the School Society have also printed in modern
Greek, both in the book and sheet form, the Scripture Lessons used in their
Central Schools' and added 'The instruction of Masters and Mistresses in this
country; their passage to and from England; the printing of elementary spelling,
reading and arithmetic lessons for the schools; and various articles of school
furniture will call for funds of a considerable amount.''3 Appended to the copy
of the appeal in the Society's records is a list of donations received, including
the names of prominent members of the B.F.S.S. and of the London Greek
Committee, such as Bowring, as well as a number of Greeks, including Mavrogordato, the head of the provisional government. Another undated document
(probably 1826) gives the names of various additional subscribers and refers to
'providing two years board, education, clothing etc. for Four Greek lads, part
of the company brought to England by Captain Blaquiere'.14
Detailed information about the boys who were henceforth supported by the
Society can be traced in various contemporary records. Most important of these
is a document amongst the Bentham papers at University College London, dated
1824, which lists the names, ages and parentage of all the nine boys who came
to England with Blaquiere (Appendix).'5 This list can be compared with a list of
the fifty or so young men who entered Borough Road during 1824, published
by the B.F.S.S. in its Annual Report for 1877, as part of a complete catalogue of
students who attended the training institution since 1810. "6 Eight out of the nine
Greek boys, as well as the older youth who accompanied them, can easily be
identified though the spelling of Greek names in Latin characters varies considerably between document and document and the younger boys are listed solely by
their first names. The missing boy, Hypates Mariolakis (oddly described as
'Nicolo Marionaki' in the Bentham list) is perhaps omitted because of his tender
age. These 1877 lists, moreover, reveal the considerable number of foreign
students who attended the Society's training institution at this early period, when
the foreign activities of the B.F.S.S. were as prominent as its educational work
in England. There had been several Russians at Southwark a few years before
the Greeks arrived as well as a number of negro ex-slaves from Africa and the
West Indies. In a few years' time there were to be a number of Arabs and

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EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND HISTORY

Egyptians. At this period there was no full-time resident secretary and leading
committee members, such as Allen and Robert Forster, the Tottenham Quaker,
had many other responsibilities to attend to. During their first months at Borough
Road, therefore, the boys must have come under the control of resident curators
(usually former students) or, more particularly, of the master of the central school
and his young assistant, John Crossley, a pupil of Joseph Lancaster's, for whom
former students in their memoirs expressed a great admiration.17 The Annual
Report of the Society described the boys under their guidance as 'pursuing their
studies with characteristic diligence and ardour'. In March 1825 they were present
at a public examination held at the school in the presence of the Whig politician,
Lord Althorp. 'The children answered very satisfactorily,' noted Allen in his
diary, 'their knowledge of-Scripture is quite extraordinary; and the Greek boys
who have only been about four months at the school, read the Bible in a manner
that was truly astonishing.'18
Few of the Greek boys, however, remained at Borough Road for very long
at this time as accommodation was limited and most of them were too young
to train as schoolmasters. Nicholas Vlacos, the older youth who had accompanied
them to England, returned to Greece within a year 'fully qualified to teach the
system to his countrymen'. According to James Bonwick, who was a monitor
and student at Borough Road when the Greek boys were there, 'Nicholas rushed
back to fight the Turks and died.'19 The four youngest boys, Antonios Lambros,
Leonidas Drakakis, Pericles Rapthophelous and Hypates Mariolakis, were sent
as boarders to a private school at Colchester run by an evangelical clergyman,
the Revd. Mechach Seaman. This advertised itself as a classical and commercial
academy where instruction was combined with an education 'equally religious
and moral'.20 As the emphasis was on 'pure, scriptural religion' and support for
the various missionary societies, the school was probably selected for the boys
by Allen, whose own scripture lessons had been translated into Greek. Another
boy, Stephen Mavrogordato (probably a relation of the Greek political leader but
not included in the party which arrived with Blaquiere) is also mentioned in
Allen's diary as being 'educated at Colne' before he returned to Greece in 1826.21
One of the boys, Costos Soterios, a Suliote (from the Albanian frontier), who
'possessed very bright abilities' and was 'naturally of a hasty and impetuous
temper' died of consumption at Tottenham in 1827 after 'his father's death in
battle preyed much upon his spirits'. Probably he is the 'Constantine' mentioned
by Bonwick as having been adopted by a clergyman near Hyde Park."
Some uncertainty exists about the fortunes of the remaining boys. Both
Demetrius Callifurnas and Georgio Tumbasi disappear from the records after
1824 and are not included in a Table of Teachers for Greece trained at Borough
Road which was published in the Annual Report for 1831.23 Probably they returned
to Greece. Eustratio Rallis, the oldest of the Greek boys, likewise disappears
unless he can be identified with the Eustratios Cokonaros described as receiving
three months' board and education at Borough Road before returning to Greece
as a teacher.24 But he may have been one of those boys described as being placed
'under the care of benevolent Gentlemen who had undertaken to bear, in whole
or in part, the expenses of their education'.2' The most prominent of these

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THE GREEK BOYS AT BOROUGH ROAD

benefactors was the aged political philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, whose friendship
was cultivated by both Bowring and Blaquiere and who had expressed a wish
to educate two of the boys on his own Chrestomathic principles: the Utilitarians
were critical of the scriptural bases of the British Society's monitorial system.
Early in 1824 Bentham had written to Colonel Leicester Stanhope, an enthusiastic
philhellene and Benthamite who was in Greece organising the loan, saying that
he had been informed by Blaquiere that the Greek chieftain, Coloccotrone,
wished his fourteen-year-old son, 'a clever boy', to be educated in England and
offering to look after the boy at his own expense, together with 'any other
between 12 and 14 or a trifle older who has by the calamities of the war been
rendered destitute by the loss or impoverishment of his parents'.26 These two
boys, wrote Stanhope in his account of the affair, were to be 'first instructed
and then employed as teachers for the diffusion of useful education'.27 In the
event, Coloccotrone's son was not amongst the boys who came to England with
Blaquiere, nor, apparently, was another boy recommended to Bentham by both
Blaquiere and Bowring, a nephew of the Greek commander Constantine Bozzaris,
described as 'about 9 years old and full of natural talent'.28 What is certain is
that Bentham did take on responsibility for at least one of the Greek boys and
that this was the cause of a dispute between Bentham and an unnamed nobleman.
Apparently this particular boy had been sent to Borough Road with the rest of
the group to learn sufficient English before being despatched to Bentham's
Westminster 'hermitage' where the old man had planned for him to visit a
mechanics' institute for part of every day during school holidays and in term
time attend Revd. Rowland Hill's Hazelwood school, which the Benthamites
preferred to Borough Road or Colchester. The nobleman, however, who was
apparently ignorant of this arrangement, had called at Borough Road during the
holidays and obtained permission from the master, Crossley, to take the boy to
his country residence for Christmas. Unfortunately Bentham had also decided
that the time had come to take the boy under his care and he was furious when
he was told at Borough Road that the young Greek had already been removed
and that his return was not expected for ten days. He wrote an angry letter to
the nobleman describing his well meant gesture as 'an expression of contempt
towards myself and demanding 'the return of your plaything by the first
conveyance'. In his reply, which was remarkably restrained considering the
provocation he had received, the nobleman pointed out that he had acted from
the best intentions, understanding that the boy was only to be sent to Bentham
after he should have obtained a sufficient knowledge of the English language.
Nevertheless he promised to return the boy to Borough Road in two days' time
explaining, 'I would sent him back instantly but that there are some clothes of
his in the wash.' He added, 'I should be very sorry indeed if the boy, perceiving
that he was sent from hence abruptly should have the mortification of thinking
that any misunderstanding had arisen on his account . . . " The nobleman rejected
indignantly Bentham's assertion that the boy had been passing his time in a
manner likely to retard his progress in education, adding 'I have been reading
English to him and with him during most of the hours that he has spared from
the fair exercise and amusements of his age, or I from the bedside of a sick wife.

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EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND HISTORY

Thus when you call him my plaything permit me to say that the imputation . . .
is as unjust as it is contrary to the good habit of judging favourably of the
motives of others. I subjected myself to some expense and to a good deal of
trouble when I first took him, not for my own amusement certainly, but because,
together with the other boys, he was in want of a home, a protector and a
friend . . . " After this Bentham had the grace to apologise and even admitted
that the boy would find himself'uncomfortable in such a hermitage as mine after
the experience he has had of your palace'.29 Unfortunately in Bowring's printed
edition of Bentham's correspondence (where these letters appear) the name of
the boy has been omitted. But a letter from Bowring to Bentham written in
1825 refers to the boy under Bentham's care as Stamos Nakos and this boy is
included in the list in the Bentham papers and in the list of Greek boys attending
Borough Road in 1824.3 From Bowring's letter it is clear that Nacos soon left
Bentham to return to his own country and he is possibly the boy referred to in
a B.F. S.S. report as being one of those in private care 'compelled through illness
to return to Greece'.31
After 1824 no further Greek boys were sent to England for education, though,
at a later stage, one Greek girl, Yanula, received three months' instruction at
Borough Road before being 'returned to her friends, proving unsuitable'. She
went back to Greece in 1829 in the company of a Scottish teacher, Euphemia
Robertson, sent out by the Society 'to promote the education of the females of
that country'.JJ The absence of any further consignments of Greek boys is perhaps
explained by the military disasters in Greece following the successful intervention
of Egyptian troops in support of the Turks. The pessimism this produced in
England is revealed in the 1826 Annual Report of the B.F.S.S. in which the
committee confessed that 'they have been able to effect but little for the
amelioration of Greece. The long continuance, so deeply deplored, of a most
desolating and destructive warfare has greatly checked almost every effort to
diffuse the benefit of knowledge in that ill fated country.'" The situation is clearly
illustrated in the fortunes of Constantinidis, the first youth to be sent out from
Borough Road, who on his arrival in Greece had established a monitorial school
for 120 children at Tripolis where the progress of the children 'excited much
astonishment among the inhabitants'. The approach of the enemy, however,
forced him to leave the town and with government help he set up another school
for 160 children at Nauplia. This, in its turn, also had to be abandoned and he
was forced to flee to the islands, where he eventually established a school on
Aegina.34 After the Egyptian defeat at the naval battle of Navarino in 1827,
however, the situation slowly began to improve especially when Count Capo
d'Istria (who visited Borough Road during a tour of England) became president
of the provisional government.35 The prospects for education in Greece now
seemed better and a number of schools were established, especially in the Aegean
islands, which had been less affected by the warfare. Various reports, optimistic
in tone, began reaching the Society about the progress of education. On the
important island of Syra a flourishing school was established by Dr. Korck, an
agent of the Church Missionary Society and a firm believer in the Lancasterian
system. During the next few years Korck acted as an agent for the distribution
6

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THE GREEK BOYS AT BOROUGH ROAD

of school material sent out by the Society including Allen's Scripture Lessons
translated into modern Greek.*6
It was to Korck's school on Syra that the Cypriot, Demetrius Pieridi, was
eventually sent in 1829. Pieridi, who had been six years in England at the expense
of the Society, is described by Bonwick as 'a quiet, studious young Greek' and
he was certainly one of the most successful of the Greek boys who attended
Borough Road. He was a particular favourite of William Allen who entertained
him at his home and instructed him in scientific subjects. 'I took Demetrius a
walk around the garden with me,' Allen recorded in his diary in 1828, 'and gave
him some serious advice respecting his conduct in life. We think of sending him
to Count Capo d'Istria in the Morea.'" Korck was equally impressed with him.
'His disposition and Christian character render him such a fellow labourer as I
have in vain sought in this country,' he wrote to the Society in 1830. 'It shall be
my endeavour to make his stay with me as useful to himself as possible and
because it is my principle that every teacher ought to be well acquainted with
his own tongue, I shall do everything I can to perfect him in Greek.'38 A year
later, however, Pieridi returned to his native Cyprus where he established a
school for 200 Greek boys still living under the Turks.
With the departure of Pieridi, only the four younger Greek boys who had
been educated at Colchester now remained in the Society's care. These four,
Antonios Lambros, Leonidas Drakakis, Pericles Rapthophelous and Hypates
Mariolakis, all came back to Borough Road during 1830-1 to be trained as
schoolmasters before returning to Greece. It is clear from the Society's Minute
Books (which have fortunately survived for these years) that, like the other
students, they spent some time away from the training institution teaching at
various B.F.S.S. schools. Lambros, for example, went to the British school at
Tottenham which was supported by the Forster family. Drakakis was sent to
take charge of the Lancasterian school at Shrewsbury under the superintendence
of a local supporter of the Society who offered to finance his stay there." At the
same time that the four Greeks were at Borough Road, James Bonwick, later to
be master of a British school in Tasmania, was a student at the training institution.
Bonwick, who had previously been a pupil and chief monitor at the central
school, has left vivid, if somewhat disenchanted, impressions of the Greeks. 'The
Greek lads we knew,' he wrote, 'had generally the ancestral quality of personal
beauty, brightness of intelligence and, it must be added, their forefathers'
deficiency of high principle. As their subordinate, I admired their lively chat and
pleasantness, while doubting a few of their romantic adventures. To our secretary,
Mr Dunn, a stern advocate of truth, they were often a sore trial for their tricks
in the House.' The Arab and Egyptian students, added Bonwick, 'though
less clever and pleasing' were 'far more honest, natural and reliable, though
Mahomedans'. Bonwick's opinion of the Greeks, however, did not prevent his
becoming friendly with them. Pericles Rapthophelous 'was my special favourite'
and 'Constantine' (probably the boy who died) was 'as gentle as good'. Bonwick
also mentions attending evening classes with Hypates Mariolakis and Isaac
Pitman, the future inventor of the shorthand system, and a student at the time
the Greek boys were at Borough Road.40
7

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EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND HISTORY

Between 1830, when Lambros sailed for Syra, and October 1833 when the
last of them, Mariolakis, left England, the remaining Greek students returned to
their own country where they took up various appointments, mainly in the
Aegean islands as even after independence, the political situation in the Morea
and around Athens continued to be disturbed with outbreaks of conflict between
various Greek factions.4' From their letters to the Society, printed in the Annual
Reports and Quarterly Extracts, we learn something of their fortunes and of the
progress of the Lancasterian schools in Greece.4-Like Pieridi, they were expected
to learn Ancient Greek as the government decreed that no one could be a
schoolmaster who was not well acquainted with it.41 In 1834 Drakakis, Rapthophelous and Mariolakis were summoned for examination at Nauplia in the
subjects they professed to teach. Most of them clearly had ambitions beyond the
monitorial curriculum of the Lancasterian schools. Rapthophelous was bringing
out a book on Geography and Mariolakis 'had made considerable progress in
geometrical studies'.44 Inevitably, as time went on, their communications became
less frequent and it is difficult to be certain what became of them. Eustratios
Cokonaros, who had returned to Greece before the Colchester group and operated
an American run school for thirty refugee boys in the isthmus of Corinth,
eventually became an interpreter.41 Rapthophelous was employed by the American
missionaries as a translator.4* According to Bonwick, one of the Greeks became
a wealthy grain merchant in Odessa.47 The fact that they had received an English
education and, indeed, at first spoke English better than vernacular Greek, must
have opened many opportunities to them in the newly independent Greek
kingdom. Strangely it was the Greek Cypriot youth, Constantinidis, who had
returned first to Greece and run into the hazards of the war, who kept longest
in touch with the Society. In 1834 he became head of the Normal School at
Athens, training teachers and superintending the Lancasterian schools where the
tradition of scriptural education was maintained with little opposition from the
Orthodox Church, whose attitude to the British system was more tolerant than
in Roman Catholic countries. Constantinidis translated Dunn's Normal School
Manual into Greek and, as late as 1870, was still writing to the Society, though
his views on the progress of education in Greece were increasingly pessimistic.48
Although the development of elementary education in England itself and in
other parts of the world, such as the West Indies, took an increasing amount of
the Society's attention after 1833, the B.F.S.S. continued to send out books and
equipment to Greece and commissioned a report on the progress of education
from an English missionary and his wife which was published in the Annual
Report.*9 It also tried to keep in touch with the old Greek students whom it had
educated and eventually returned to their own country as teachers. To many of
the politicians and speculators of the London Greek Committee and rival Greek
factions, the boys who were sent to England were little more than instruments
for impressing public opinion and thus securing a loan which would bring
military and commercial assistance for Greece and they soon lost interest in them.
Members of the B.F.S.S., however, like Allen and Forster, were genuinely
concerned about the educational and moral regeneration of Greece and generously

THE GREEK BOYS AT BOROUGH ROAD

supported the boys in their care in what turned out to be one of the Society's
more fruitful ventures into overseas education.

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George F. Bartle,
British and Foreign School Society Archives,
West London Institute of Higher Education

1. For Bowring and the London Greek Committee, see D. Dakin, British and American
Philhellenes, 1821-1833 (1955), pp. 42 ff.; G. F. Bartle, 'Bowring and the Greek Loans of
1824 and 1825', Balkan Studies, iii (1962), pp. 62 ff.
2. For Allen and the B.F.S.S., see H. B. Binns, A Century of Education, iSoS-igoS (1908); Life
of William Allen (1846), vols. i-iii.
3. Life of Allen, ii, p. 104.
4. 'W' (Ward), 'The Foreign Work of the British and Foreign School Society, III Southern
Europe', Educational Record, xvii (1907), p. 355.
5. Dakin, op. cit., p. 44.
6. Life of Allen, ii, pp. 322-3 (Diary for 3 Mar. 1823). Allen presumably means the committee
oftheB.F.S.S.
7. B.F.S.S. Annual Report (hencefore A.R.) xviii (1823), p. 29, xix (1824), p. 21. The names
of Greek people and places are frequently written in an Italianised or Anglicised form in
contemporary records.
8. A.R. xx (1825), p. 20.
9. Ibid., pp. 20-1. It is possibly Casanova that Bonwick is referring to when he describes an
escape from the Turks as a 'Greek yarn' by 'another of our Hellenic playmates'. J. Bonwick,
An Octogenarian's Reminiscences (1902), p. 44.
10. See 'General Sketch of Proceedings in Greece for the Promotion of Education: Table of
Teachers', A.R. xxvi (1831), p. 54.
11. Dakin, op. cit., p. 83. See also Blaquiere to Bentham, 8 June 1824, Bentham Papers,
University College London, Box XII. Blaquiere's dealings with the Greek provisional
government are described in his A Second Visit to Greece (1825).
12. New Monthly Magazine, xii (1824), P- 5 J 5'
13. 'An Appeal to the Public from the British and Foreign School Society on the Subject of
Education in Greece'. (Undated copy in the B.F.S.S. Archives at West London Institute of
Higher Education, Foreign Records: Greece.) See also Life of Allen, ii, p. 391 (Diary Tor 29
Dec. 1824).
14. B.F.S.S. Archives, Foreign Records: Greece. This document presumably refers to the four
young boys sent to Colchester.
15. 'List of Greek Boys', Bentham papers, U.C.L., Box XII, 321. The list is reproduced in the
Appendix to this paper.
16. 'List of Students Trained at the Institutions of the British and Foreign School Society', A.R.
lxxii (1877), Appendix IX. The 1824 list includes the Greek sounding name 'Cassemeiro
C but no reference to him has been found elsewhere.
17. For Crossley see G. F. Bartle, A History of Borough Road College (1976), pp. 1516. Sir
Joshua Fitch described Crossley as having 'a remarkable genius for organisation and for
receiving the loyalty and hearty co-operation of the most promising of his scholars': A. L.
Lilley, Sir Joshua Fitch (1906), p. 8. See also Bonwick, op. cit., pp. 83-4.
18. A.R. xxi (1826), pp. 4-5; Life of Allen, ii, p. 396 (Diary for 24 Mar. 1825).
19. Ibid. See also Bonwick, op. cit., p. 44.
20. 'Table of Teachers', A.R. xxvi (1831), pp. 54-5. For the Classical and Commercial Academy,
North Hill, Colchester, see M. Seaman, The Christian Pupil's Manual and Historical Catechism

EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND HISTORY

21.
22.
23.
24.
25.

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26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
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38.
39.

40.

41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.

10

of the Sacred Scriptures (1822). The back cover of this text book contains a prospectus of the
school.
Life of Allen, ii, p. 415 (Diary for 2 Sept. 1926).
Quarterly Extracts from the Correspondence of the British and Foreign School Society, iii (henceforth
Q.E.) (1827), p. 8. Bonwick, op. cit., p. 46. See also 'Table of Teachers', be. cit.
'Table of Teachers', loc. cit. The four Greek boys who returned to Borough Road are listed
with Years 1830 and 1831 in A.R. lxxii (1877), Appendix IX.
Ibid.
A.R. xxi (1826), p. 4. The report refers puzzlingly to three boys being placed under private
care and of seven remaining in the Society's house. This is explained if Soterios is included
with the first group and the Cypriot, Pieridi, with the second.
Bentham to Stanhope, 21 Feb. 1824, Bentham Papers, U.C.L., Box XII, 195.
L. Stanhope, Greece in 182J and 1824 (1825), p. 8. Stanhope himself arranged for a little
Turkish boy 'found prowling among the ruins of Argos' to be sent to England and educated
at the Borough Road school.
Blaquiere to Bentham, 8 June 1824, Bentham Papers, U.C.L., Box XII, 290. See also
Bowring to Bentham, 22 Aug. 1825. Bentham Papers, U.C.L., Box CLXIII, 46.
The correspondence is printed in J. Bowring (Ed.), Life and Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham
(1843), x, pp. 544-5. (Letters of 24, 29, 31 Dec. 1824.)
Bowring to Bentham, 22 Aug. 1825, Bentham Papers, U.C.L., Box CLXIII.
A.R. xxi (1826), p. 4.
'Table of Teachers', loc. cit. See also Q.E. x (1829), p. 80.
A.R. xxi (1826), p. 20.
Ibid. See also Table of Teachers', loc. cit.
Q.E. xi (1829), p. 88.
Korck's reports on Syra and elsewhere are printed in A.R.s from 1828 onwards. See also
Revd. J. Hartley's report on education in Greece in 1827 (copy in B.F.S.S. Archives, Foreign
Records: Greece).
Life of Allen, III, p. 4 (Diary for 19 July 1828).
A.R. xxv (1830), p. 90.
Inspectors' Committee Minutes, entry for 16 Dec. 1831 (B.F.S.S. Archives). B.F.S.S.
Minutes for many years before 1829 and for all years after 1835 were destroyed in 1941.
The minutes for 15 June 1831 record that the Society contributed to the expenses of a
holiday in Wales for one of the Greek students, Drakakis.
Bonwick, op. cit., pp. 44-7. Bonwick was not the only English student who found the
Greeks unreliable. There is a curious letter in the B.F.S.S. archives from a student named
Charles Stephens bitterly accusing Hypates Mariolakis of breaking his promises to write:
Foreign Records: Greece.
The dates of departure of the Greeks are recorded in the minutes of the B.F.S.S. from 1830
onwards. Lambros's passage was paid by the Greek leader, Mavrogordato.
Undated letter of Drakakis on the Lancasterian schools on Syra: Q.E. xxi (1834), p. 155.
Undated letter of Rapthophelous, A.R. xxx (1835), p. 35.
Ibid. See also Q.E. xxviii (1833), p. 126.
' W (Ward), op. cit., p. 359.
A.R. xxi (1836), p. 30.
Bonwick, op. cit., p. 47.
Constantinidis's later career is summarised in 'W' (Ward), op. cit., pp. 358-9. His letters of
1848, 1849, 1869 and 1870 are preserved in the B.F.S.S. Archives, Foreign Records: Greece.
A.R. xxix (1834), pp. 81 ff. for Revd. G. Dickinson's 'Journal of a Tour of Greece'.

THE GREEK BOYS AT BOROUGH ROAD

APPENDIX
List of Greek Boys i824 w
Name

Eustratio Rallis

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Costa Suteriottis

Age

Birth

J.B. 14

Suli

J.B. 12

Livadia

Pericles Raftopoulos

11

Athens

Leonidas Drakakis

10

Scio

Antonio Lambros

11

Paris

Nicolo Marionaki

Scio

Demet Callifumas

12

Athens

Stamo Naccos

Giorgio Tumbasi*

Idra

Occupation of
Father or Guardian

Place where last

residing and for
how long

Merchant

Napoli di
Romania
two months
From
Missolonghi to
Zante from
the mountains
Napoli di
Romania

Colonel

Exarch and
Member of
Provisional
Assembly
Officer
No father his
Uncle not any
profession. A
Marmeluke
Father in
Napoleon's
service officer
Merchant
No father his
mother lives. Father
was a merchant.
His father an
admiral

Athens All
his life
Napoli
one month
Napoli
one year
Napoli
two months
Athens his
life

'' Bentham Papers, University College London. Box XII, 321.

This list, probably written by one of Bentham's secretaries, is given more or less in the
form it appears in the document. 'J.B.' presumably indicates the two boys intended to
receive their education from Bentham.
* Name added later in another hand

II