Margaret Benson


Margaret Benson was an English author and Egyptologist.

Life

One of the six children of Edward White Benson, an Anglican educator and clergyman, and his wife Mary Sidgwick Benson, the sister of philosopher Henry Sidgwick who founded Newnham College. She and her sister Mary Benson went to Truro Girls High School which was a school her father had founded while the first Bishop of Truro. Margaret was one of the first women to be admitted to Oxford University, where she attended Lady Margaret Hall. Her intelligence and accomplishments were remarkable.
She went to Egypt because of her health, became interested in Egyptology, and was the first woman to be granted a government concession to excavate in Egypt. She excavated for three seasons in the Temple of the Goddess Mut, Precinct of Mut, a part of Karnak, Thebes, where she was joined in the second season by Janet Gourlay, who became her traveling companion and partner.
She suffered from frail health most of her life and was not able to continue the excavation after 1897. She suffered a severe mental breakdown in 1907, was treated first in an asylum at St George's Convent, Wivelsfield, Sussex, and from November 1907 to 1912 at The Priory in Roehampton. She died in 1916 at The Rowans, 27 Lingfield Road, Wimbledon at the age of 50.

Family

In the Benson family, several members suffered from mental illnesses, probably bipolar disorder. Margaret had five siblings, none of whom married. She was known within the family as Maggie. One brother was the novelist E. F. Benson. Another was A. C. Benson, the author of the lyrics to Elgar's "Land of Hope and Glory" and master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Her youngest brother, Robert Hugh Benson, became a minister of the Church of England before converting to Roman Catholicism and was ordained a Catholic priest writing many popular novels.

Publications