Charles Thomas Newton
Sir Charles Thomas Newton (born September 15, 1816 in Clungenford , Shropshire , † November 28, 1894 in Westgate-on-Sea , Kent ) was a British classical archaeologist .
Newton attended Shrewsbury School and studied at Christ Church College , Oxford since 1833 (1837 BA, 1840 MA). Here he made friends with John Ruskin . From 1840 to 1852 he worked as an assistant at the British Museum in London . From 1852 to 1860 he was British Vice Consul in Mytilene on Lesbos , 1853/54 on Rhodes , and in 1860 British Consul in Rome . With the creation of a new department for classical antiquities at the British Museum, Newton became the first Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities in January 1861 , a position he held until 1885. On April 27, 1861, he married the painter Ann Mary Severn . From 1880 to 1888 he taught as a first Yates Professor of Classical Art and Archeology at the University College of London University . In 1887 he was raised to the personal nobility by being appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath ("Sir"). In 1876 he was elected a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and in 1877 of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .
During his assistantship at the British Museum he mainly worked in the coin collection, during this time (1846) the museum also acquired parts of the reliefs from the mausoleum of Halicarnassus . During his time as consul in the Aegean, Newton was able to carry out numerous excavations on the Turkish west coast. So he managed to uncover parts of the mausoleum of Halicarnassus from 1856–58 and to send the remaining sculptures to London. In 1857–59 he dug in Didyma , where he was able to secure the archaic seated statues of Branchidai for the British Museum, and in Knidos , where he was also able to acquire numerous sculptures for the British Museum. The main purpose of his excavations was to find finds for the museum, an excavation method was alien to him, and the documentation of the excavations was insufficient. As head of the antiques department, he succeeded in expanding the collection by acquiring numerous private collections, and he was able to rearrange the Elgin Marbles and the sculptures from the mausoleum. Together with Samuel Birch, he published the first catalog of the British Museum's vases (1851–70) and the museum's catalog of Greek inscriptions (1874–90).
literature
- Cecil Harcourt Smith : Newton, Charles Thomas. In: Dictionary of National Biography . 1901 Supplement, Volume 3, pp. 224-225 ( full text ).
- Ian Jenkins: Archaeologists & Aesthetes in the Sculpture Galleries of the British Museum 1880-1939. British Museum Press, London 1992, ISBN 0-7141-1299-2 , pp. 168-195.
- Brian F. Cook : Newton, Thomas Charles. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 40, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, pp. ( Full text ).
- Stephen L. Dyson : Newton, Charles Thomas. In: The Dictionary of British Classicists. 1500-1960. Volume 2, Thoemmes Continuum, Bristol 2004, ISBN 1-85506-997-0 , pp. 712-717.
- Stephen L. Dyson: Newton, Charles Thomas. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 880 f.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 178.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Newton, Charles Thomas |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Newton, Sir Charles |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British Classical Archaeologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 15, 1816 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Clungenford , Shropshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 28, 1894 |
| Place of death | Westgate-on-Sea , Kent |