She told it how it is. She recounted the tale of Egypt with a focus on ordinary life, particularly the lives of women. She did not sensationalise the past to dazzle or ‘hook’ her audience, as earlier adventurers and showmen had. Amelia, a great novelist, told a vast story consisting of every little detail. Despite strong criticism, her approach to Egyptology did more than popularise the topic; it moulded modern archaeology itself. But just how did she do this? This is the story of Amelia Edwards, the adventurer who, more than anyone else in the late nineteenth century, catapulted interest in Ancient Egypt into the mainstream…
The Birth of the Traveller
Amelia Edwards was born on June 7th, 1831, in London, the daughter of an army officer who became a banker. She was a writer from an early age, publishing poems and stories that she illustrated herself. She had artistic talent. George Cruikshank, illustrator for Dickens and others, saw her work and offered to become her teacher, but Amelia’s parents saw art as a lowly pursuit.
She became a published author at 14 but followed a musical career instead. Until a case of typhus made singing opera difficult. Her sore throat made it difficult for her to sing and it led to her losing interest in music and even regretting the time she had spent studying opera.
But she had other interests, of course. Like many other girls, she also enjoyed horseback riding, pistol shooting and mathematics. Sorry, did I say ‘like many other girls’? Not that, no…
Amelia began writing fiction in her early 20s and created a name for herself by publishing novels that were thoroughly researched and crafted with great care. She is well known for her books ‘Barbara’s History’ (1864) and ‘Lord Brackenbury’ (1880), as well as the ghost story ‘The Phantom Coach’ (1864).
She contributed articles, poems, and mystery stories to various publications, including Charles Dickens’ ‘Household Words’, and she was a founding member of the feminist English Woman’s Journal, which was founded in 1858.
‘Barbara’s History’, her best-selling novel, explores the controversial but popular Victorian themes of bigamy and infidelity, while its titular heroine is combative, well-travelled, and intellectual.
Amelia’s relationships were almost always with women. She lived with Ellen Braysher for more than three decades, while Ellen Byrne, the wife of a preacher and school inspector, was another major figure in Amelia’s life.
There are all manner of rumours and speculation about Amelia’s sexuality and true relationship with these and other women, but in truth, there is no concrete proof Amelia was gay (or that she married a woman in a church). Amelia’s friend, John Symonds, claimed that Amelia confessed to him the ‘intimate’ nature of her relationship with Ellen, but Amelia herself never confirmed it, despite what many articles out there claim. It’s an instance of ‘historical negationism’, where you distort history to suit a narrative.
Amelia’s success as an author (‘Lord Brackenbury’ was reprinted 15 times to meet demand) enabled her to pursue her interest in travel. In 1853, she learned about the Dolomites from sketches she saw.
In 1872, she embarked on her first major adventure, travelling to Italy with a companion, Lucy Renshawe, to see the Dolomites, a region that had yet to be surveyed and charted. The daring couple (remember, this was the 1870s, and they were the only women on the expedition) hired mountain guides and explored extensively.
Amelia’s first nonfiction piece, ‘A Midsummer Ramble in the Dolomites’ (1873), was inspired by the adventure. That year, she also published ‘Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys’, one of the most popular travel books produced about the region.
It provides an amusing and exuberant introduction to the breathtaking scenery of the highlands and their formerly secluded communities. The region was not overrun with tourists. There was plenty of time for sketching, botany, and mountain climbing.
She was an adventurous soul and so, in 1873, she set off on another adventure, this time on a cruise down the Nile. She became so enthralled with some amateur digging at Abu Simbel, that she returned to England determined to devote the rest of her life to advancing Egyptology as a scientific field.
Little did anyone know then just how revolutionary her methods were to be…
The Itchy Feet of the Modern Egyptologist
Back home, Amelia’s feet were getting itchy. She was restless for more travel. In England, she observed what she described as a ‘dead-level World of Commonplace’. Egypt enthralled her, but England did not.
So Amelia decided to research Ancient Egypt, teaching herself hieroglyphics. She wanted to be an Egyptologist, as you do. So, in 1873, Amelia and Lucy flew to Egypt. Once again, they sailed down the Nile aboard a dahabiyeh (a type of houseboat), from Cairo to Abu Simbel, with a group of artists, intellectuals and writers.
The wonders they saw inspired Amelia.
In 1877, she released ‘A Thousand Miles up the Nile’, a detailed account of her journey that was both enjoyable and erudite, lavishly illustrated with her own illustrations, which are stunningly beautiful.
The book represented a watershed moment in women’s travel writing by focusing on the traditionally masculine spheres of history and research while mostly disregarding female home life, which Amelia claimed she had little opportunity to investigate.
She described what she observed in her book in lengthy, evocative detail. Here’s her take on the island of Philae:
‘The approach by water is quite the most beautiful. Seen from the level of a small boat, the island, with its palms, its colonnades, its pylons, seems to rise out of the river like a mirage. Piled rocks frame it on either side, and the purple mountains close up the distance. As the boat glides nearer between glistening boulders, those sculptured towers rise higher and even higher against the sky. They show no sign of ruin or age. All looks solid, stately, perfect. One forgets for the moment that anything is changed. If a sound of antique chanting were to be borne along the quiet air – if a procession of white-robed priests bearing aloft the veiled ark of the God, were to come sweeping round between the palms and pylons- we should not think it strange.’
The book was a best-seller. And so Amelia devoted everything she had to Egypt. She fought to conserve Egypt’s great history, saddened by the thefts and thoughtless devastation of priceless historical artefacts that she had witnessed.
The book changed people’s perceptions of Egypt, increasing interest in Egyptology and catapulting it into the mainstream…
The Fight to Protect Egypt
Amelia co-founded the Egypt Excavation Fund in London in 1882. The name was changed to the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) in 1919, and it is still active today. Its mission was simple:
Investigate, conserve and safeguard Ancient Egyptian sites.
Amelia was instrumental in raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for the fund by writing popular articles about the findings, as well as conducting thousands of letters and talks worldwide. Her passion for preserving the past aided new archaeologists in travelling to Egypt to study the sites as they should have been, rallying professional and public support for excavation and methodical and accurate monument recording.
She was an outspoken supporter of the preservation of ancient sites against modern-day challenges.
Amelia went on to fund Britain’s first professorship in Egyptology, which was endowed at University College London due to the institution’s progressive attitude towards women, as well as a scholarship for Francis Llewellyn Griffith, who became the first Oxford Professor of Egyptology decades later.
Amelia had become such a respected expert in ancient Egypt within a decade that she was regularly contributing to academic journals. She had tremendous energy and physical stamina, as well as a gift for public speaking, which she demonstrated wonderfully in 1889 when she embarked on a lecture tour of America.
She crisscrossed the country for five months, speaking to audiences of over two thousand people at a time. She spoke in 16 states, giving 110 lectures. When she broke her arm a few hours before a lecture in Columbus, she went to a surgeon who set the bone and continued with the event.
Three honorary degrees were bestowed upon her by American universities.
Amelia devoted the rest of her life to Egyptology, becoming one of the great Egyptologists.
The Many Strings to the Bow
Amelia was a novelist. And an Egyptologist. But she was also a huge supporter of women’s rights. She rose through the ranks of the Society for Promoting Women’s Suffrage to become vice president. She was one of a group of women who transformed women’s travel writing, including Ella Sykes, Gertrude Bell, Jane Dieulafoy, Isabella Bird, and Lady Anne Blunt, who devised their own ways to push the boundaries of women’s travel.
They did not accept the paradigm that their interests and work had to be limited to literary and domestic matters to be published, whether they were single or married. Although their attitudes towards the women’s suffrage fight differed at times, they all defended their right to be regarded seriously in the worlds of diplomacy, geography, and science.
Sadly, Amelia caught the flu in 1892 and died on April 15th at her home in Weston-Super-Mare. She was just 60. Both Amelia and Ellen died in the same year, both still living with each other. Amelia bequeathed all of her Egyptian antiquities, library and photographs to University College London, the first college to allow women to study.
Her legacy also extended to the first British professional chair dedicated to Egyptology, he Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology. Its first professor, Flinders Petrie, instructed numerous archaeologists, including Howard Carter, the man who found Tutankhamun.
Amelia’s close friends, Flinders Petrie and Kate Bradbury, were responsible for Amelia’s unusual grave in Bristol, which is an obelisk with, at its base, a giant stone ankh, the Ancient Egyptian symbol of eternal life. The inscription on the obelisk reads:
‘Who by her writings and her labours enriched the thought and interests of her time.’
But she was more than a great pioneer and benefactor for Egyptology…
A New Adventure on the Nile
Amelia Edwards is a name that few people have heard of. But she told it how it is. She recounted the tale of Ancient Egypt with a focus on ordinary life, particularly the lives of women. She did not sensationalise the past to dazzle or ‘hook’ her audience, as earlier adventurers and showmen had. Amelia, a great novelist, told a vast story consisting of every little detail.
Unsurprisingly, her life is recounted through the lens of archaeology. But she was a person of many talents. Her excursion along the Nile came when she was in her 40s, after she had already made a name for herself as a travel writer with an account of a hike through the Dolomites.
She didn’t begin her career as an Egyptologist, promoting archaeology and conservation around the world, until she was 50. She co-founded the Egypt Exploration Fund and lectured in front of full houses on both sides of the Atlantic. She brought Ancient Egypt to life and catapulted it into the mainstream, as well as, sometimes, using her speeches to quietly support women’s rights.
So how do we remember her? As an archaeologist? Or perhaps a travel writer? What about a novelist? Journalist? Musician? Linguist? Fundraiser? Feminist?
In truth, she was all these things. She was up for any challenge.
She was a cultural icon of Victorian England, admired for her best-selling novel, for her humorous, thought-provoking travel writing, and as a distinguished historian, bringing to a fascinated public a new understanding of the civilisation of Ancient Egypt.
Most would agree that she accomplished more than anyone else in the 19th century to promote interest in Ancient Egypt, her devotion to Egyptian history earning her the moniker ‘The Godmother of Egyptology’.
But her legacy stretches far beyond this. She moulded modern archaeology itself. She was an inspiring person who continues to inspire people to this day.
In one of her lectures, she describes the wonders of Egyptology:
“It may be said of some very old places, as of some very old books, that they are destined to be forever new. The nearer we approach them, the more remote they seem: the more we study them, the more we have yet to learn. Time augments rather than diminishes their everlasting novelty; and to our descendants of a thousand years hence it may safely be predicted that they will be even more fascinating than to ourselves. This is true of many ancient lands, but of no place is it so true as of Egypt.”
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Image Credits
https://www.londonremembers.com/subjects/amelia-edwards, https://www.facebook.com/blaisemuseum/photos/a.477062749078059/3429989703785334/?type=3, https://www.jmichaelsbooks.com/pages/books/901181/amelia-b-edwards/a-thousand-miles-up-the-nile-two-volumes-bound-in-one
Post Sources
https://trowelblazers.com/2014/06/25/amelia-edwards-2/, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1439170, https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/whats-on/from-avon-to-nile-the-adventurous-life-of-amelia-edwards-egyptologist-and-writer/, https://hannahfielding.net/amelia-edwards/, https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/adventurous-life-of-amelia-b-edwards-9781350293953/, https://the-past.com/shorts/people/amelia-edwards/, https://exploration.marinersmuseum.org/subject/amelia-blanford-edwards/, https://archaeologybulletin.org/articles/10.5334/bha-598, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Edwards, https://blog.oup.com/2015/06/amelia-edwards-archaeologist/
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