John Pendlebury

John Devitt Stringfellow Pendlebury (12 October 1904 – 22 May 1941) was a British archaeologist who worked for British intelligence during World War II.

He was captured and summarily executed by German troops during the Battle of Crete.

John Pendlebury was born in London, the eldest son of Herbert Stringfellow Pendlebury, a London surgeon, and Lilian Dorothea ( Devitt), a daughter of Sir Thomas Lane Devitt, 1st Baronet, part owner of Devitt and Moore, a shipping company.

At the age of about two, he lost an eye while in the care of a friend of his parents.

Conflicting reports of the accident were given.

He used a glass eye, which, it has been said by people who knew him, was generally mistaken for a real one.

Throughout his life, he remained determined to out-perform persons with two eyes.

As a child, he was taken to see Wallis Budge at the British Museum.

During the conversation, he apparently resolved to become an Egyptian archaeologist.

Budge told him to study Classics before making up his mind.

His mother died when he was 17, leaving him a legacy from his grandfather that made him financially independent.

His father remarried but had no further children.

Pendlebury got along well with his stepmother, Mabel Webb Pendlebury, and her son, Robin.

He remained the centre of his father's affections, whom he called "daddy" in letters.

He was educated at Winchester (1918-1923), before winning scholarships at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

At the University of Cambridge he was awarded a Second in Part I and a First in Part II of the Classical Tripos, "with distinction in archaeology".

He also shone as a sportsman, with an athletics blue and competing internationally as a high jumper.

He was painted by Sir William Nicholson as "A Cambridge Blue, John D. S. Pendlebury".

During the Easter holidays of 1923, Pendlebury and a master from Winchester had travelled to Greece, Pendlebury for the first time; visiting the excavations at Mycenae, they conversed with Alan Wace, then Director of the British School at Athens.

Wace remembered him as a boy who wished "to see things for himself".

The visit solidified his determination to become an archaeologist.

On leaving university in 1927 Pendlebury won the Cambridge University Studentship to the British School at Athens.

Unable to decide between Egyptian and Greek archaeology, he decided to do both and study Egyptian artefacts found in Greece.

He first visited Crete in 1928 with the other students.

After a rough sea crossing at night they hastened on to Knossos, which Pendlebury at first concluded was "spoilt" by the restorations.

The students then toured eastern Crete by automobile over muddy dirt roads, and in frequent heavy rain and snow.

At the eastern end, they attempted to reach Mochlos and Pseira by leaking boat, but failed.

They were prepared to swim for it.

Pendlebury wrote a poem about the fleas he encountered while lodging in Sitia.

This study resulted in his Catalogue of Egyptian Objects in the Aegean area, published in 1930.

In Athens, Pendlebury stayed at the British School's student hostel, which also provided lodging for visiting scholars doing research in Greece.

They dined with the students, conversing with them and each other on scholarly topics.

Pendlebury wrote his first impressions to his father, that they were so learned, "It makes me feel such an impostor being there at all."

He soon found the companionship more to his liking.

He hiked the Greek countryside with Sylvia Benton, who had excavated in Ithaca, competing with her to see who could walk the fastest, and became friends with Pierson Dixon, later British ambassador to France.

He struck up a friendship also with another archaeology student, Hilda White, 13 years older than he was.

Exploring the Acropolis of Athens with her, he climbed over the parapet and announced to the guard "I am a Persian."

The students explored Greece in groups, living an athletic life, in contrast to the sedentary preferences of the scholars.

Pendlebury discovered 10 miles of an ancient road at Mycenae, where he also attended a village dance by a bonfire.

Pendlebury also found time to play tennis and hockey, and to form an athletic team for running and jumping.