Sir William Ridgeway (1853-1926) was an Anglo-Irish archaeologist and classical scholar. Disney Professor of Archaeology and Brereton Reader in Classics at the University of Cambridge, he was Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Fellow of the British Academy and President of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He contributed articles to theEncyclopedia Biblica (1903),Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) and wroteThe Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards (1892), andThe Early Age of Greece (1901) which were significant works in Archaeology and Anthropology.
Ridgeway’s essayGreek Trade Routes to Britain, which today we propose to modern readers, was published in 1890 in the first volume ofFolk-Lore, a quarterly review of Myth, Tradition, Institution, & Custom. It is a fundamental work for understanding and discovering the ancient commercial relationships and mercantile routes between the Greek world and the British Isles.