Hogarth, David George

Education

Hogarth was educated at Winchester College, where he was a commoner from 1876 to 1881. He gained distinction as a runner (in his last year he won the mile, half-mile, and quarter-mile) and acquired a reputation for greater ability than he cared to show. Although he claimed to have had 'no feeling for the grey Gothic austerities' of the college (Hogarth, 2), he observed, when his own son was a pupil there, that 'At Winchester I learned how to learn things, and that was a great deal' (DNB).

In October 1881 he went up to Oxford as a demy of Magdalen College. Ostensibly more interested in horse-racing and athletics, he obtained first classes in both classical moderations (1882) and literae humaniores (1885). He was the president of junior common room, and was generally recognized as a man of outstanding ability. After taking his degree in 1885, a year of uncertainty followed, when he contemplated the possibilities of fellowships, of the bar, and of the British Museum without much enthusiasm. In the following year, 1886, he was elected to both a fellowship (and tutorship) at Magdalen College and a Craven university fellowship. This allowed him to travel to Greece, where in January 1887 he was admitted as a student at the newly established British School at Athens directed by Francis Penrose. His fellow student was the Cambridge-educated Ernest Gardner.

Early travels in Asia Minor and Cyprus

Hogarth hoped to follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, whose conquests 'fired my imagination and stirred a lust for discovery' (Hogarth, 2). A short study on the deification of Alexander appeared in the English Historical Review (1887), followed by a full study: Philip and Alexander of Macedon (1897), a work dedicated to his old Oxford college. His first taste of travel in the Ottoman empire was in spring 1887, when he took a boat to Salonika to study Macedonian inscriptions (Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1887). In May he joined William Mitchell Ramsay at Smyrna for a journey through Asia Minor, and in Hogarth's own words 'entered on an arduous apprenticeship to the best epigraphist in Europe' (Hogarth, 6). They travelled up the Lycus valley, visiting Hierapolis and Pamukkale, then up the Maeander valley into Phrygia, and crossed the Taurus Mountains into Cilicia.

Hogarth gained his first experience of excavation in Cyprus at Old Paphos (Palaeopaphos) in 1888. Ernest Gardner, now director of the British School at Athens, was in charge of the work under the auspices of the Cyprus Exploration Fund, set up with the support of the Hellenic Society. Though Gardner had gained practical experience of excavating with Flinders Petrie in Egypt, Hogarth and his fellow diggers (including Montague Rhodes James) 'were so raw as not to know if there were any science of the spade at all' (Hogarth, 11). The results appeared in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (1888) with shorter notices in the Classical Review (1888). It was during this excavation that Hogarth came to know the tomb robber turned digger Gregorios Antoniou of Larnaca, who later became the foreman of the excavations at Knossos under Arthur Evans. Antoniou claimed in later life that he had saved Hogarth's life at Salamis in Cyprus when he was allegedly attacked by a two-headed snake. Hogarth's travels through the island that summer were recorded in Devia Cypria (1889), a work which he drily commented 'has deceived more than once … sanguine buyers of Erotica'.

A second trip with Ramsay through Asia Minor was made in 1890 in the company of Arthur Cayley Headlam. This time they made their way through Pisidia, and later in the journey Hogarth was introduced to the Hittites and their epigraphy at Gürün. The Hittites became a major interest in his later career. A third trip with Ramsay had been planned for summer 1891, but illness prevented Hogarth from meeting him in Mersin. Instead Hogarth travelled with John Arthur Ruskin Munro and Gregorios Antoniou, making a study of the Roman roads and milestones. The results appeared as Modern and Ancient Roads in Eastern Asia Minor (1893). The group had hoped to see some Hittite inscriptions at Marash in Commagene, but these had been looted and moved to a North American museum.

Hogarth was involved in the Oxford University Dramatic Society production of Aristophanes' Frogs (1892), helping Hubert Parry to prepare suitable music. One of the Magdalen students he influenced was John Linton Myres, who travelled to Greece in 1893 and worked with William Roger Paton on the survey of the Bodrum peninsula. In 1893 Hogarth's fellowship and tutorship at Magdalen College came to an end, and he was forced to look for suitable employment.

Excavations in Egypt

In the following year Hogarth's career took an Egyptian turn which, in his view, taught him how to excavate. In January he visited Flinders Petrie's excavations of Koptos (Quft) to the north of Luxor. Because Hogarth had epigraphic experience in Asia Minor, Petrie invited him to prepare the Greek and Latin texts for publication in Koptos (1896). Hogarth's main task, however, was to join the Egypt Exploration Fund's excavations at Deir-el-Bahari, the location of Queen Hatshepsut's temple cut into the rock face, ostensibly to assist Édouard Naville, the Swiss archaeologist employed by the fund, but in reality to investigate Flinders Petrie's complaints about the conduct of the excavations. Egypt also offered Hogarth the opportunity to develop his long-standing interests in Alexander the Great. The Graeco-Roman Museum had been established in Alexandria in 1892, and Hogarth saw the opportunity for exploring the ancient city. He conducted a short survey after the Deir-el-Bahari excavations; limited excavations were conducted from February to April 1895 at Kom al-Dikka. The report, co-authored with Edward Frederic Benson, appeared as Report of Prospects of Research in Alexandria (1895).

In the mean time Hogarth returned to Britain, via the upper Euphrates, and on 7 November 1894 he married Laura Violet (d. 1952), daughter of Major George Charles Uppleby (1819–1891), of Barrow Hall, Ulceby, Lincolnshire, who was a distant relative of his mother; the Upplebys were patrons of the living at Barton upon Humber, though the Revd George Hogarth was now rector of Harston in Leicestershire. They had one son, William David, born in 1901.

Egypt was perceived as a potential source for new ancient classical texts written on papyri and preserved in the dry conditions. Hogarth's expectation for this type of archaeology is revealed in Philip and Alexander of Macedon (1897), where he looked forward to 'some Egyptian grave giv[ing] up the Philippica of Theopompos, or the Macedonica of Anaximenes' (p. 2). From December 1895 to February 1896 he worked with the classical scholar Bernard Pyne Grenfell, a former holder of a Craven studentship, in El Faiyûm. They concentrated on the sites of the Ptolemaic temples at Kom Aushim and Kom el-Atl. The disappointing results were published (with Arthur Surridge Hunt) as Fayum Towns and their Papyri (1900). Hogarth found that Egypt was not to his liking, and indicated that he wished to resign from his work with the Egypt Exploration Fund. However, he encouraged the fund to continue to search for classical papyri, the result of which was the creation, in summer 1897, of the Graeco-Roman Research Account. Grenfell and Hunt subsequently turned their attention to Oxyrhynchus, where they were rewarded with the types of find for which Hogarth had longed.

The British School at Athens

Hogarth was now invited to be director of the British School at Athens as successor to Cecil Harcourt-Smith, whose two-year secondment from the British Museum ended in summer 1897. However, Hogarth's reputation as a traveller seems to have influenced Valentine Chirol's choice to ask him to report on the Cretan revolt for The Times; for Hogarth the decision was not difficult: 'I had never been in Crete, and a scholar may rarely watch war' (Hogarth, 21). Hogarth arrived at Canea in early March to the sight of burning houses. In spite of intervention by the international powers, the Muslim population was removed. At the end of March attention was focused on Thessaly and Hogarth made a short visit to the frontier before joining a pre-arranged expedition to Lycia with John George Clark Anderson to study the cities of Xanthus, Patara, and Myra. In early April the Sublime Porte declared war on Greece, and Hogarth headed for Crete, travelling into the interior accompanied by 'an Italian bugler and a stalwart Highlander of our Seaforths, whose native brae was Wapping' (ibid., 39).

Hogarth took up residence in Athens in October 1897, giving him the security of a £200 salary. He was expected to instruct the students of the school, as well as to guide British visitors round some of the key sites and museums in Athens. Hogarth's solution was to employ George Chatterton Richards as assistant director for four months with responsibility for lecturing to the students, paid from his own salary. Robert Carr Bosanquet, who was appointed assistant director in 1899, made the arrangement clear in a letter to his father: 'Hogarth to be responsible for excavations, the other man for teaching and running the School in Athens' (5 May 1899). Hogarth as director was nominally in charge of the British School's excavations at Phylakopi on the island of Melos which had been started under Cecil Smith in 1896; in practice, it was Duncan Mackenzie, Evans's future assistant at Knossos, who took charge of the day-to-day aspects of the work, though they collaborated in spring 1898. Hogarth held Mackenzie's skill as a field archaeologist in high regard, and was prepared to write strong references in his favour. The report on the season's excavations appeared in the Annual of the British School at Athens (1897–8). From February to May 1899 Hogarth directed the excavations, supported by the Society of Dilettanti, at the Greek settlement at Naukratis in the Nile delta, a site first explored by Petrie and Ernest Gardner. The results appeared in the Annual of the British School at Athens (1898–9). Hogarth returned to the site in 1903 for further excavations which were published in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (1905).

Excavations in Crete

Crete, now under the control of the international powers, was ready for excavations. In spring 1899 Hogarth accompanied Evans to Knossos. They then toured the island prospecting for potential sites to excavate. The Cretan Exploration Fund was launched subsequently with Hogarth as one of the directors. The Cretan Exploration Fund provided Hogarth with a steady income, so he resigned as director of the British School where he was succeeded by Bosanquet. Hogarth remained a member of the managing committee of the British School at Athens. To this period belongs the collection of essays Authority and archaeology: sacred and profane. Essays on the relation of monuments to biblical and classical literature (1899), brought together under his editorship. Apart from Hogarth's own chapter, 'Prehistoric Greece', other contributors included Ernest Gardner, Francis Llewellyn Griffith, and Francis Haverfield. Hogarth conducted three major excavations in Crete. In 1900 he directed an excavation near Knossos—separate from Evans's work on the site of the ‘Palace of Minos’—published in the Annual of the British School at Athens (1899–1900). Hogarth made the reason for this separate dig clear in a letter to Evans:

I have made digging so much my trade that I have various ways and methods (largely of course learnt from Petrie) which I consider essential and must apply for myself, under no more than very general direction from home.

Momigliano, 39

It was Hogarth's suggestion that Mackenzie, then in Rome, should be appointed to help Evans with the excavation of the palace.

Hogarth's second excavation at the Dictaean Cave near Psychro on the Lassithi plateau is memorable for the use of dynamite to remove the thick layers of stalagmites and stalactites which covered the archaeological layers (a technique later used at Carchemish to break through the Roman levels). The third set of excavations was conducted at Kato Zakro in spring and early summer 1901, assisted by John Hubert Marshall, who was shortly to be appointed director-general of antiquities for India. During the excavations the campsite was swept away by the exceptional flood waters surging down the ‘Gorge of the Dead’. Hogarth's failure to locate the palace (excavated in 1961) was in contrast to the success of Evans's high-profile excavations at Knossos. While excavating on Crete, Hogarth was responsible for encouraging the American Harriet Boyd to excavate in the east of the island. Hogarth's expertise as an archaeologist is reflected in his essay on archaeology in the Royal Geographical Society's Hints to Travellers (1901).

Travels and excavations in the Near East, and keeper of the Ashmolean Museum

Hogarth remained interested in the Near East. His book A Wandering Scholar in the Levant (1896) had already earned him a reputation; T. E. Lawrence commented in 1910 that it was 'one of the best travel books ever written' (Selected Letters of T. E. Lawrence, 87). It was later combined with Accidents of an Antiquary's Life (1910) and reissued as The Wandering Scholar (1926). Hogarth's interest in the Near East, of vital importance to the British government in the First World War, was consolidated with two regional studies, The Nearer East (1902) and The penetration of Arabia: a record of the development of Western knowledge concerning the Arabian peninsula (1904). He was one of the discoverers and champions of the traveller Charles Montagu Doughty (1843–1926), whose life he subsequently wrote (1928). Although these works reflect Hogarth's detailed knowledge of the published material on the region, it is significant that his first visit to Arabia was not made until 1916, when he visited Jiddah during the Arab uprising.

After a visit to Cyrene in spring 1904, Hogarth's experience of working in the Ottoman empire brought him the opportunity to dig on behalf of the British Museum on the site of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus (1904–5). Flooding on the site was eased through the loan of a pump from the Ottoman Railway Company. This work was published as Excavations at Ephesus: the Archaic Artemisia (1908). Hogarth was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1905. His interest in the Greeks in western Anatolia was presented in a series of lectures to the University of London and appeared as Ionia and the East (1909).

Archaeology in Egypt began to attract Hogarth again, perhaps with talk of the establishment of a British School of Archaeology in Egypt which was being mooted by Petrie. During winter 1906–7 Hogarth excavated, on behalf of the British Museum, in the Bronze Age cemeteries cut into the cliffs near Asyut in Middle Egypt; perhaps significantly, Petrie was working only 6 miles away at Rifa. Most of the tombs had been robbed in antiquity, and Hogarth's experiences appeared in Accidents of an Antiquary's Life.

Hogarth was now a celebrated archaeologist known through his prolific writing. In November 1907 he made the first of his lecture-tours to the United States of America. In 1908 he was awarded the Lucy Wharton Drexel medal (first awarded in 1902) by the University of Pennsylvania for 'his important archaeological work in Greece, Crete, Asia Minor and Egypt'; he followed other British archaeologists including Arthur Evans and Flinders Petrie. Further tours to North America were made in 1909 and in 1921.

One of Hogarth's last major travels was undertaken in spring 1908. He made a further reconnaissance of the Euphrates valley, visiting the sites of Carchemish and Tell Bashar. For domestic reasons he wanted a more settled life with a regular income, and so in November 1908 he succeeded Arthur Evans as keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. This period saw the marked development of the holdings in Cretan and Hittite antiquities. 'The routine details of his office he conducted efficiently and without fuss', Frederic Kenyon recalled, 'and he combined with his museum duties other work for the university, particularly as delegate of the Clarendon Press, where his knowledge and his practical sense were of great value' (DNB). A. H. Sayce recognized that Hogarth had two key qualities for the Ashmolean, 'tact and conciliatory temper' (Sayce, 302).

In autumn 1910 Hogarth was granted permission by the Ottoman government to excavate at Carchemish on behalf of the British Museum; the firman described him as 'a specialist in the science of archaeology' (BM, Central Archives, Carchemish file, 53). The site of Carchemish was adjacent to the proposed bridge for the Berlin to Baghdad railway, then under construction by German engineers. Hogarth reputedly persuaded the Kaiser to ensure that the mound should not be damaged. Hogarth's relationship with the German engineers is reflected by the donation of a pot to the Ashmolean Museum in 1914 by a Herr Hoffmann of the Baghdad railway staff. Late in February 1911 Hogarth travelled out to start the excavation of Carchemish in the company of Reginald Campbell Thompson, T. E. Lawrence, and Gregori, who had assisted with Hogarth's Cretan investigations. Lawrence, a recent graduate in history, had been awarded a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, on Hogarth's recommendation; Lawrence recalled Hogarth's friendship as 'perhaps the most important of his life' (Selected Letters of T. E. Lawrence, 40). It was Hogarth who encouraged Lawrence to learn Arabic. Although Hogarth visited Carchemish again in 1912 and 1914, the excavations were continued under the direction of C. L. Woolley (formerly of the Ashmolean Museum) and Lawrence. The results were published as Carchemish: Report on the Excavations, Part I: Introduction (1914). The survey of the Sinai peninsula ('The wilderness of Zin') by Lawrence and Woolley under Captain Stewart Francis Newcombe RE during winter 1913–14 was at the prompting of Hogarth through the Palestine Exploration Fund.

The Arab Bureau

With the outbreak of the First World War, Hogarth's knowledge of the Arab world and the Ottoman empire was invaluable. Working for the geographical division of naval intelligence in London, he made frequent trips to Cairo from late in 1914 as part of a group operating under the auspices of Gilbert Falkingham Clayton, the director of civil and military intelligence in Cairo. The campaign against the Turks was not going well, with the siege of Kut al-Amara and the disaster at Gallipoli. Mesopotamia technically came under the auspices of the India Office, but moves were afoot to place Arab affairs under the control of Cairo. In 1915 William Reginald (Blinker) Hall, director of the intelligence division, decided to develop operations in the Middle East through the formation of the Arab Bureau. Hogarth and Hall, whose grandfather the Revd Henry Thomas Arnfield of Leeds had been a close friend of Hogarth's father, discussed matters. Hogarth travelled to Athens, meeting Compton Mackenzie at the British School (in July 1915), and then to Cairo. In a letter home to his mother (9 August 1915) from Cairo he indicated that his role was that of an expert on Turkey, and that part of his function was to interrogate Turkish prisoners. Hogarth returned to London, and then, holding (from October 1915) the rank of lieutenant-commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, travelled back for November and December to Cairo, where he joined C. L. Woolley and Lawrence. The team was supplemented in late November 1915 by the Arabist, and close friend of Hogarth's sister Janet, Gertrude Bell, who was personally briefed by Hall.

Cairo became Hogarth's permanent base from March 1916 where he worked as part of the Arab Bureau under Clayton. The Arab Bureau, which included a major library on the Middle East paid for by Hogarth, was located in the Savoy Hotel next to the Grand Continental, where its members lodged. This group was mainly responsible for the development of the British–Egyptian (as opposed to the British–Mesopotamian) point of view concerning the aims and policy of operations in Arabia, Palestine, and Syria. It was for the home government to decide how far such aims should be adopted and carried out. The Arab Bureau prepared the Arab Bulletin, which appeared from spring 1916. Hogarth was involved with the writing of several reports published by the Arab Bureau: Handbook of Hejaz (1916), Position and Prospects of King Husein (1918), (with Major Kinahan Cornwallis) Handbook of Yemen (1917), and (with T. E. Lawrence and Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Edward Wilson) Tribal Politics in Feisal's Area: ‘King of the Arabs’ (1918).

The war was not going well in Mesopotamia and at the end of April 1916 the British force at Kut surrendered. French interests in Syria were also threatening to undermine the British efforts to bring the Arab world into a revolt against the Ottoman empire. Moreover the agreement between Mark Sykes and F. Georges Picot for dividing up the Arab lands after the cessation of hostilities was contrary to promises already made by British officials to Husain ibn Ali, the sharif of Mecca. The Arab Bureau now started to play a more prominent role in Arab affairs. Late in May 1916 Sir Henry McMahon sent a telegram to the foreign secretary recommending that substantial payments should be made to the sharif of Mecca: 'Will send Storrs as required accompanied by member of Arab Bureau' (24 May 1916, political and secret records, BL OI0C). So in early June 1916 Hogarth, along with Ronald Storrs and Kinahan Cornwallis, travelled to Jiddah on HMS Dufferin along with £10,000 worth of gold for the sharif of Mecca; the Arab uprising had begun.

Alfred Parker, the former military governor of Sinai (1906–12), had been expected to be the first director of the Arab Bureau, but his services were required on the ground as a political officer at the port of Rabegh in the Hejaz. Cornwallis was now in Jiddah, and Gertrude Bell had left for Basrah, and so Hogarth was left in charge of the bureau at Cairo. Cornwallis was recalled to Cairo in autumn 1916 to be the acting director to relieve the demands made on Hogarth. However, as Hogarth was to confide to his wife, 'in a sense I am the A.B., though Cornwallis is its official chief' (5 May 1917). Hogarth was largely responsible for the difficult and delicate diplomacy which underlay the Arab campaign so brilliantly conducted in the field by his former archaeological disciple, T. E. Lawrence. F. Reginald Wingate was to note at the time:

I cannot speak too highly of Hogarth's work in the Arab Bureau. His detailed knowledge of Arabic, sound judgment and general scholarship, have been of the greatest assistance to us and if … you require expert local advice you cannot do better than send for him.Wingate to Harding, 16 June 1917, Sudan Archive, University of Durham; Westrate, 45

The situation in the Arab world became complicated in May 1917 when Sykes and Picot travelled to Jiddah to meet the sharif of Mecca. Fearing that the revolt would be undermined if Arab aspirations were not met, Hogarth returned to London in July 1917 to counter Sykes's manoeuvring in favour of France.

Allenby's Palestine campaign was gathering momentum. Hogarth was present during the British attack on Gaza in November 1917, although he found time to investigate a mosaic between the coast and Beersheva. In December 1917 Jerusalem was captured and Hogarth was busy negotiating with the sharif of Mecca about the future of the Arab lands. It is probably at this point that he was aboard a Japanese gunboat, memorable for the experience of eating Japanese food. In February 1918 Hogarth was at Allenby's general headquarters at Umm al Kaleb near Arish when Lawrence, then attached to Feisal's army as a political officer and disillusioned by what he perceived as broken promises to the Arabs, arrived to 'come to beg Allenby to find me some smaller part elsewhere' (Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1935, chap. 90, p. 502, 21 Feb 1918).

At about the same time Hogarth interviewed the Syrian Dr Faris Nimr to explore the possibility of an independent Syria, a development contrary to the Sykes–Picot agreement. In June Hogarth was asked by a Syrian delegation to clarify British policy towards the Arabs, the so-called Declaration to the Seven. Hogarth reinforced this declaration during his visit to London in August, where he was warned that if separate Arab states were not created, it would be 'considered a breach of faith and damaging to British prestige' (memo, 9 Aug 1918, TNA: PRO, FO 371/3381, fol. 146; Westrate, 166). His frustration was vented on Robert Cecil at the Foreign Office:

As for my supposed anti-French sentiment, it is confined to colonial matters. Three years have taught me that in these, without trace or exception, the French work against us, their interests being contrary to ours everywhere except in Europe, and ready to offer active opposition as soon as the War is over.18 Aug 1918, TNA: PRO, FO 371/3381, fol. 146; Westrate, 167–8

The capture of Damascus in October brought the realization that the French would control Lebanon and Syria, and that the Arabs, under Feisal, would have control of the territory to the east of Jordan. The policy advocated by Hogarth and the Arab Bureau had been thwarted. For his wartime services, Hogarth was appointed CMG (1918) and was awarded the order of the Nile (second class) and the Sherifican order (second class); he was also mentioned in dispatches three times.

At Gertrude Bell's prompting, Hogarth was recalled from Cairo in March 1919 to join the British delegation at the peace conference at Versailles and Sèvres. His disappointment at the way the negotiations were going was revealed to Clayton:

I must resign and go back to Oxford sick at heart at all this fiasco and the melancholy consummation of four years work. To think that we are to hand over Faisal and Syria to Senegalese troops … I won't blame the Arabs … if they get out their rifles.19 March 1919, St Antony's College, Oxford, Hogarth papers, F4; Westrate, 171–2

There was a proposal that he should join the American commission's visit to Syria, but France was hostile to the suggestion.

Post-war: return to the Ashmolean

Hogarth returned to his former Oxford position at the Ashmolean Museum early in June 1919, though he did not formally resign his commission until July. Although he had a 'contempt for the party system, for canvassing, and for votes' (Fletcher, 322), he was persuaded to accept the nomination for the burgess-ship of Oxford University in parliament following the death of Mark Sykes from influenza in February 1919; to his relief, this came to nothing. In Oxford he served on the hebdomadal council, and was an active member of the statutory commission on Oxford University to implement the recommendations of the royal commission of 1920. Hogarth did, however, return to Egypt. In spring 1921 Winston Churchill, now in charge of the Colonial Office and Middle East affairs, convened a Cairo conference; Hogarth, Clayton, and Lawrence were among his party. It was agreed to uphold the earlier commitments to the sharif of Mecca, in part through the creation of Transjordan.

In the post-war period the colourful character of Lawrence had captured the public imagination, and in 1920 Hogarth prepared an anonymous short biographical essay on him for William Rothenstein's Twenty-Four Portraits (1920). A portrait of Hogarth in charcoal was made by Augustus John for the subscription edition of Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), for which Hogarth was the literary executor. Lawrence wrote to Hogarth after seeing the portrait in the Alpine Gallery: 'John's thing of you is wonderful. Might have been drawn by a drunken giant, after eating a mammoth. … Mrs. Hogarth won't like it' (letter of Easter day, 1 April 1923; Selected Letters of T. E. Lawrence, 407). Although Lawrence wrote to R. B. Buxton, 'It's good news that the Ashmolean has taken the John drawing of D. G. H. That's the first breach in their wall against modernism' (23 June 1927; Selected Letters of T. E. Lawrence, 525), the portrait was finally accepted by the Ashmolean Museum as a gift from Lawrence only in 1935.

In 1917 Hogarth was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society; he had been a fellow since 1896. He became an Oxford DLitt in 1918 and a Cambridge LittD in 1924. His post-war work took him back to the world of the Hittites, first in his study Hittite Seals with Particular Reference to the Ashmolean Collection (1920), and second in his Schweich lectures of 1924 which appeared as Kings of the Hittites (1926). He prepared several chapters on the Hittites for volumes of the Cambridge Ancient History (1924, 1925). In 1925 he became president of the Royal Geographical Society, and his presidential address of 1927 dealt with Gertrude Bell's journey to Hayil in 1913–14. He also served as chairman of the Palestine Exploration Society.

The man: last years and reputation

Sir Frederic Kenyon described Hogarth as:

somewhat above middle height, well set-up, dark in colouring, with a rather sardonic expression which suited a cynicism of phrase characteristic of him. It was only a superficial and good-natured cynicism, quite compatible with readiness to serve and help others. The outstanding impression given by him was that of mastery of his work. Indeed, except during the War, he never seemed to have a task which called out his full powers. He disliked routine and a fixed employment; hence he passed from one piece of work to another, and settled down to nothing till past middle life. He was a wise adviser, because he was full of knowledge and experience without being led astray by unbalanced enthusiasm, and because he was quite free of envy or jealousy. He was not a fighter or self-assertive, but he generally succeeded in attaining his end, for he knew his own mind and was trusted.

DNB

In 1926 Hogarth's health started to deteriorate, and in October 1927 he applied for special leave from the Ashmolean as he was suffering from a heart condition. He died suddenly in his sleep on 6 November 1927 at his home, 20 St Giles', Oxford. T. E. Lawrence, then in Karachi, received Hogarth's obituary from The Times; he replied to Lionel Curtis, commenting that 'nobody could value Hogarth without knowing him' and that Hogarth 'never struck me as a scholar, but as primarily a civilised person' (letter of 22 Dec 1927; Selected Letters of T. E. Lawrence, 557–8). On reflection, he noted to David Garnett that 'Hogarth was the last archaeologist to marry humanity and science in that fashion' (letter of 14 Feb 1930; ibid., 680). Hogarth left unfinished The Life of Charles M. Doughty (1928), which was to be completed by his son.