Debbie Challis FRHistS is Creative Producer of the Portico Library Manchester (UK) and a cultural historian with an expertise on the reception of classical antiquity in the nineteenth century and the emotional impact of working with historical archives and objects. She has an MA in Critical Theory, Goldsmiths College and a PhD in History of Art, Birkbeck College, University of London. Dr Challis has worked in archives and museums, including the National Portrait Gallery, the BBC Archives, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at UCL and the Library of the London School of Economics (LSE). She is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Liverpool (Milesian Tales) and Fellow of the Royal History Society. She has published widely on the history of archaeology, including two books From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesos: British Archaeologists in the Ottoman Empire 1840-1880 (2008) and The Archaeology of Race: the Eugenic Ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie (2013). She is currently researching and writing about the life of Victorian artist Mary Severn Newton and co-editing a book on the life and work of Charles Thomas Newton for UCL Press. She is resident expert on Alex Andreou’s Podyssey, a podcast about the myths and complex legacy of Ancient Greece. Much of the research for this chapter was funded by Arts Council England as part of a Developing Your Creative Practice grant.

“Visiting the Hafiz Ahmed Agha Library was an unexpected highlight of my holiday and research visit in Rhodes in 2025. I have been working on material related to this chapter since starting my PhD 25 years ago and still find there is so much to learn about the intercultural connections and legacies in the ‘Levant’. I also work in a library that is similarly having a conversation with many people about its past to build for the future. Manchester made its profits from enslaved people and underpaid workers and was the motor of the industrial revolution (and so climate change). The Portico Library was built from those profits and opened in 1806. It was founded to be a tolerant institution of learning and sharing of knowledge, but only for those male and wealthy enough to join it. Libraries are not silent places but hold the voices of those who have used them and those that couldn’t use them. By listening to both sets of voices and trying to understand them, I believe we can make libraries usable for all people. I hope that by contributing to this book, at the kind invitation of Tarık Tüten, I am promoting that belief and contributing to this Conversation.”

Debbie Challis

For all drawings special thanks to © Birkenhead Collection - Severn Family Archive Private Collection. Photos: Debbie Challis, 2024