William Goodison (1785-1836)

William Goodison (1785-1836), an Irish military doctor, served as assistant surgeon in the 75th Regiment of Foot in the Ionian Islands during 1814-1821, and visited Preveza and Nicopolis for two days, in June 1818. He published his memoires from his stay in the region in the “Historical and Topographical Essay upon the Islands of Corfù, Leucadia, Cephalonia, Ithaca, and Zante: with Remarks upon the Character, Manners, and Customs of the Ionian Greeks; Descriptions of the scenery and remains of antiquity discovered therein, and reflections upon the Cyclopean ruins”, printed in London in 1822.

Richard Burgess (1796-1881), an English clergyman, accompanied three young British aristocrats –George Paget (1818-1880), Thomas Knox (1816-1858), and John Butler-Clarke-Southwell-Wandesforde (1813-1856)– in their trip to classical Greece and Asia Minor, during spring and summer 1834. They visited Preveza in May 1834. Burgess published his travel memoires in the two-volume “Greece and the Levant; or, a diary of a summer’s excursion”, printed in London in 1835.

This article is a critical Greek translation of Goodison’s and Burgess’ text about Preveza and Nicopolis. It is published in the biennial edition of the Municipal Library of Preveza “Prevezanika Chronika”.

Ο Ιρλανδός στρατιωτικός γιατρός William Goodison (1785-1836) υπηρέτησε ως υπίατρος στο 75ο Σύνταγμα Πεζικού του Αγγλικού Στρατού στα Επτάνησα, από το 1814 μέχρι το 1821. Επισκέφθηκε την Πρέβεζα και τη Νικόπολη στις αρχές Ιουνίου 1818 για δύο μέρες.

Ο Άγγλος ιερωμένος Richard Burgess (1796-1881) συνόδευσε το 1834, ως παιδαγωγός, τρεις γόνους της Βρετανικής αριστοκρατίας –τους George Paget (1818-1880), Thomas Knox (1816-1858), και John Butler-Clarke-Southwell-Wandesforde (1813-1856)– στο ταξείδι τους στην κλασσική Ελλάδα και την Μικρά Ασία. Στην αρχή αυτού του ταξειδιού, τον Μάιο του 1834, πέρασαν από την περιοχή της Πρέβεζας.

Μεταφράζουμε τα σχετικά με την περιοχή της Πρέβεζας κείμενα των Goodison και Burgess με λεπτομερείς υποσημειώσεις.

William Goodison (alternatively Goodisson) (1785-1836) was an assistant surgeon of the British Army. He was born in 1785 in the county of Wicklow, Ireland. His father, William Goodison, was a pharmacist and urged his son to study under professor Austin of Trinity College, Dublin. William Goodison entered Trinity College at the age of 16, in 1801, and concluded his studies in the spring of 1807 by obtaining a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts). He ranked the Medical Service of the British Army on 23 August 1810. He was placed an assistant surgeon of the 75th Regiment of Foot (also known as the Abercromby or the Highland Regiment), a position previously held by John Cumine. He served this post until the 4th March 1824, when he was reduced on half-pay and moved to the 25th Regiment of Light Dragoons, until his death in August 1836.

The 75th Regiment of Foot was posted, during the Napoleonic Wars, to the Ionian Islands and arrived in Corfu on 14 July 1814, after the de facto occupation of the island by the British. William Goodison, then a young assistant surgeon under George Treyer, served in Melikia, a village near Lefkimmi in southern Corfu-island, and studied, on the field, the symptoms of the remittent fever and the plague which struck the region. The epidemic had appeared in Malta in 1814 and was transferred to the Ionian Islands in 1815 and 1816. Goodison published the results of his observations in an article, which appeared in the medical periodical Dublin Hospital Reports in 1817.

After the elimination of the plague epidemic in Corfu, the 75th Regiment of Foot moved, in August 1817, to the island of Lefkas, where it stayed until the end of 1820. From Lefkas, Goodison travelled to other Ionian islands, like Meganisi, Ithaca, Cephalonia and Zante. The Regiment returned to Corfu on the last days of 1820, and stayed there until August 1821. Their next base was Gibraltar from where they returned to England at the end of 1823.

During his service in Corfu and the Ionian Isles, Goodison took advantage of his stay there and compared the topography of these islands against the descriptions of Homer’s Odyssey and other texts of ancient and modern writers. The outcome was a Historical and Topographical Essay upon the Islands of Corfù, Leucadia, Cephalonia, Ithaca, and Zante: with Remarks upon the Character, Manners, and Customs of the Ionian Greeks, which he composed during his stay in the islands and concluded writing in Gibraltar, where the regiment moved in August 1821. The book was published in October 1822, in London, by Thomas and George Underwood, and was welcomed with extensive reviews, published in the following years.