Academic career

Andrewes was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, between 1933 and 1946, and of New College, Oxford, from 1946 to 1953. He was Wykeham Professor of Ancient History from 1953 until his retirement in 1977.

An obituary summarized his academic career thus:

His published work was wide in appeal. The freedom of the specialised article, of which he wrote several of great importance, allowed him to indulge his subtlety of thought, sometimes at the expense of clarity. But where outside control was imposed on content (as in his superb revision of Hill's Sources in collaboration with R. Meiggs), on format (as in his completion of Gomme's great commentary on Thucydides in collaboration with Sir Kenneth Dover) or on both (as in his Greek Tyrants and the Greeks), accuracy, style and insight were near to faultless. His insight which, with less adventurous hypotheses attached, he shared with his predecessor, Wade-Gery, had nothing loose or superficially enthusiastic about it. It was based on an intimate acquaintance with the literature and art of archaic and classical Greece, a deep but never over-pious love for them and an extraordinary sensitivity for humanity, qualities that kept him close to Maurice Bowra."^[1]

Kenneth Dover described his work on Thucydides as, "Comprehensive and penetrating treatment... He knew Greek extremely well, and he also knew Greece."^[2]

Military service

On 20 June 1941, he was commissioned in the Intelligence Corps, British Army, as a second lieutenant. His service number was 191239.^[3] By January 1945, he was a captain (temporary major).^[4]

Andrewes was one of those scholars whose previous contacts with Greece equipped them to give invaluable assistance to the Greek resistance. His services in the northern Peloponnese, where he was dropped by parachute in 1943, were recognised by his being made MBE (military) in 1945. According a colleague, as soon as he arrived in Greece "he made himself at home with people of all ranks and social levels, knew everybody's story and was immediately loved and revered by all who were capable of such feelings. To the Greeks he was simply Toni a name very properly considered to be Greek from the start."^[5]

In later years, Andrewes also supported the resistance movement against the Greek Junta. In gratitude, the restored democracy made him a Commander of the Order of the Phoenix in 1978.^[5]