Hello Gab/Smethwick
Violet's brothers - Percy and Charles Christian are mentioned often in the first half of the Winter Pilgrimage by Rider Haggard.
archive.org/details/winterpilgrimage00hagg/page/n11/mode/2up
Percy Christian - note where he was born - this links up to Smethwick's earlier post about Violet.
Acted as the agent and occasionally as a supervisor for the British Museum excavations on Cyprus between 1893 and 1899, but also a dealer in antiquities who sold items to the Museum between 1897 and 1924.
Christian was born at Norton Mill near Baldock, Hertfordshire in 1871 and came out to Cyprus sometime in the earlier 1890s - after the 1891 census - perhaps to work with his brother Charles (q.v.) and John William Williamson (q.v.) who had recently established the Cyprus Company Ltd, a trading company. Percy was delegated much of the work of Charles and Williamson were engaged to do by the British Museum as agents for the Turner Bequest excavations at Amathus (1893-4), Kourion (1895) and Enkomi (1896). Although the agent's tasks were mainly administrative, there is considerable evidence that he played a hand in the recording of the finds and certainly supervised the actual digging at Enkomi during the middle stretch of the season in 1896. He also compiled the main notebook of the finds from the latter site, demonstrating some degree of archaeological skill.
Between 1897 and 1899 he was hired as an agent in his own right to manage the excavations at Maroni, Hala Sultan Tekke, Kouklia and Klavdia, while also trading in antiquities that turned up on the local market, sometimes in competition with Gjabra Pierides (q.v.). He should therefore be associated with these excavations as closely as the Museum staff who officially supervised the work. Although he was never hired as a permanent representative of the Museum, he advised both Alexander Murray at the British Museum and the Cypriot government on archaeological matters.
During this time, Percy Christian also worked with his brother at the Cyprus Company (until it folded in 1897), in mining (at Limni near Polis) and on various projects for the government, including the eastern Mesaoria irrigation works. He later seems to have developed business interests in Turkey, which were badly affected by the outbreak of the First World War, but continued to be involved with Cyprus until the end of his life sometime around 1950 (exact dates unknown to the present author). His last sale of an artefact to the Museum took place in 1924.
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG57776
Charles Christian
British expatriate businessman living and working on Cyprus from at least 1879 until around 1910 or later. He sold antiquities to the British Museum in the late 1880s and 1890s, including items from commercial excavations at Polis (ancient Marion) organised with Charles Watkins and J.W. Williamson. He also acted, in collaboration with Williamson, as the Museum's agent during the Turner Bequest excavations on the island between 1893 and 1896. His younger brother Percy (q.v.) deputised for him during most of this time.
Christian was manager of the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Limassol between 1879 and around 1890 when he became general manager for whole island (until 1893). During this period he engaged in other business activities (including shipping and mining). He was a partner (along with Williamson and Charles Watkins, another local banker and businessman) in the large-scale commercial excavations at Polis in 1886, from which numerous important items were sold to the British Museum (see GR Archives, Original Letters for 1886-7).
Also in collaboration with Williamson, in 1891 Christian established the Cyprus Company Ltd, a general wholesaling and trading business. Towards the end of the decade was a contractor on major irrigation works in the eastern part of Cyprus (Mesaoria) carried out by the British administration. He also conducted preliminary exploration at the Limni mines in the north-west of Cyprus around the same time, and is later recorded as having interests in various government engineering works.
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG57774
Regards
