William Miller (historian)

William Miller (1864–1945) was a medievalist and journalist. Born to a Cumberland mine owner, Miller attended Oxford, gained a double first, and was called for the law in 1889 but never practiced. He married Ada Mary Wright in 1895, with whom he departed London in 1903. Despite an effort by Ronald Burrows to recruit him to be the first incumbent of the Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at London University, Miller and his wife spent the rest of their lives abroad.

At first they lived in Rome until 1923, when he found Benito Mussolini's rise to power distasteful, and moved to Athens. There Miller was associated with the British School at Athens until the German invasion of Greece in 1941. Together the couple lived in South Africa for the rest of their lives, Ada Mary surviving him by four years. They had no children.

His important publications include:

• The Balkans (1896)
• Travels and Politics in the Near East (1898)
• Greek Life in Town and Country (1905)
• The Latins in the Levant (1908)
• The Ottoman Empire and its Successors (1913)
• Essays on the Latin Orient (1921)
• History of the Greek People (1821-1921) (1922)
• Trebizond the Last Greek Empire (1926)

Sources

• Paul Hetherington, "William Miller: Medieval historian and modern journalist", British School at Athens Studies, 17 (2009), pp. 153–161.