In 1889, he was called to Athens as director of the American School of Classical Studies, which office he held until 1893, when he became professor at the same institution.

[2] In 1895, he returned to England as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge; and he held this chair until 1901.

During his stay in Athens, he directed the excavations of the Archaeological Institute of America at the site of ancient Plataea, Eretria, where he claimed to have unearthed the tomb of Aristotle, the Heraeum of Argos, among other discoveries.

They had one son, Henry, and a daughter, Evelyn Sophie Alexandra, who married the judge Sir Patrick Browne.

He wrote three short stories under the pseudonym 'Gordon Seymour' which were later released under his own name as The Surface of Things (1899).