Amelia Edwards
Attribution: sagespot
7 Jun 1931 - 15 Apr 1892
Writer and Founder of the Egypt Exploration Fund and Petrie Museum
| Relationship | People |
|---|---|
| Associated | William Flinders Petrie, Amenemhat III |
Amelia Edwards was a Victorian writer and explorer who became on of the era's top Egyptologists, co-founding two of Britain's top archaeological institutions. She was also one of Victorian Britain's leading proponents of the suffraget movement. Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards was born in London to Irish parents on the 7th June 1831, and soon developed a love and talent for writing. She was writing novels and poetry as a young child; her first work completed just aged seven.
Yet it would be Edwards' intrepid travels which would make her an enduring star. Controversially without any male chaperonage, she ventured to Egypt in 1873. Travelling south from Cairo to Abu Simbel, visiting many places in between, Edwards discovered a deep passion for Egyptology. She would spend six weeks excavating the temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel - painter Andrew McCullum even discovered a previously-unknown ancient sanctuary which bore Edwards' name for many years after.
Now obsessed with Egypt, and with a comfortable sum of money made from her writing endeavours, Edwards published A Thousand Miles up the Nile in 1877. Of her first departure from Cairo, she writes: "Happy are the Nile travellers who start thus with a fair breeze on a brilliant afternoon. The good boat cleaves her way swiftly and steadily. Water-side palaces and gardens glide by, and are left behind. The domes and minarets of Cairo drop quickly out of sight. The mosque of the citadel, and the ruined fort that looks down upon it from the mountain ridge above, diminish in the distance. The Pyramids stand up sharp and clear."
Yet Egyptian heritage was facing a crisis in the face of growing tourism, inept excavation and treasure hunters. Using her social clout and journalistic expertise, Edwards brought together great archaeologists such as Maspero and Flinders Petrie to found the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society) in 1882. She was enamoured with the work of Petrie in particular, yet her influence in the EEF diminished over time, apparent arguments with the British Museum hampering her progress.
Edwards still wanted her legacy in Egypt. Unperturbed by the chauvenistic traditions of the time, she founded a new museum at University College, London in 1892 - and installed Petrie as its first professor. This museum would later be named the Petrie Museum, but it held a vast amount of Edwards' own private collection. Amelia Edwards died on the 15th April 1892, the victim of a severe bout of the flu. Yet her bequests and legacy continue to help thousands of people study Ancient Egypt, and her records in Egypt and on display all over the world.
