Robert Pashley

Robert Pashley (4 September 1805 - 29 May 1859) was a 19th century British traveller and economist.

Pashley was born in York and studied at Cambridge University. Distinguished in mathematics and Classics. In 1830 was elected at his first sitting Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1832 he took MA degree, and as a travelling Fellow he undertook a journey in Italy Greece, Asia Minor and Crete, of which he published his two-volume "Travels in Crete". [Robert Pashley, "Travels in Crete", 1837, J. Murray] His work is considered a classic of writing on the Ottoman Empire, with his detailed observations on local geography, customs and social issues.

*1837: Called to the Bar by Society of Inner Temple
*1838: Lost his valuable library and antiquities in fire at Temple
*1851: Appointed one of Her Majesty's Counsel
*1852: Stood for Parliament (not elected)
*1853: Married to a Prussian Lady, Marie, only daughter of Baron Von Lauer of Berlin. Had three children.
*He went on to publish two works on economics: "On Pauperism" (1854), and "Observations on the government bill for abolishing the Removal of the Poor" (1854).

His remains are buried at Kensal Green cemetery.

tudies of Crete

Pashley was one of the foremost researchers of Cretan culture in the first half of the nineteenth century. Pashley was the first one to work out the location of the ancient buried city of Cydonia, relying only on ancient literature, without the aid of archaeological recovery. [ [http://letmespeaktothedriver.com/site/10881/cydonia.html#fieldnotes C. Michael Hogan, "Cydonia", Modern Antiquarian, January 23, 2008] ] In his travel to Crete in 1830 he observed that Greek was the common language of this island that was then part of the Ottoman Empire, even though a substantial part of the population was then Muslim. [Molly Greene, "A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean", 2000, Princeton UniversityPress, 228 pages ISBN 0691008981]

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