Margaret Rule


Margaret Helen Rule, was a British archaeologist. She led the project that excavated and raised the Tudor warship Mary Rose in 1982.

Early life

Rule, née Martin, was born in Buckinghamshire on 27 September 1928. She studied chemistry at the University of London.

Career

She was the curator of the Fishbourne Roman Palace, when she began her work in maritime archaeology when she was consulted on the initial search for the wreck of Mary Rose.
In March 1982 Margaret Rule visited Adelaide, South Australia, as the keynote speaker to the Second Southern Hemisphere Conference on Maritime Archaeology. During the Conference she visited the historic Murray River port of Morgan and dived with members of the Society for Underwater Historical Research on a project to record and recover items from the riverbed alongside the town's massive wharf.

Later life

Rule had been living with Parkinson's disease and arthritis in her later years. She died on 9 April 2015, aged 86.

Obituaries

She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1995, the National Maritime Museum awarded her its Caird Medal. In 2001 the University of Portsmouth named a new 342 bed student accommodation block Margaret Rule Hall after her. In 2008, she was awarded the Colin Mcleod Award for "Furthering international co-operation in diving" by the British Sub Aqua Club.