Recordings will be made available for those unable to attend the live sessions!
Amelia B Edwards is, perhaps, most famous as the founder of the Egypt Exploration Society and the eponymous Chair of Egyptology at University College London. However, her life and legacy are far more complex and fascinating than these simple facts. This course will delve into the complexity (and messiness!) of Amelia’s upbringing in London and Suffolk before exploring her early music and literary careers as she discovered herself travelling around Europe. Her excursion to Egypt, of course, forms an important turning point in her life and defined the rest of her years which has left an enduring shadow over British Egyptology.
Attendees should book to find out more about the birth of British Egyptology, and they will also learn about Victorian England, societal pressures of the time, and what prompted Amelia’s trajectory into travel and – eventually – Egypt. By attending this course, participants will learn the truth behind Amelia’s personal trials growing up in Victorian England and hear a broader context to the founding of British Egyptology.
A general understanding of Egyptian chronology and geography would be helpful for the second session of this course. Resources will provide key names and dates and essential background reading to help attendees follow the course content.
Tutor
Dr Carl Graves
Course Outline
Please note that main content will be delivered between 18:00-19:30, though some optional participation (quizzes, Q&A, etc.) may continue beyond that time.
Thursday 26 June 2025, 18:00-19:30 (UK time)
Week One - Amelia B Edwards: The Path to Egypt
This session will explore Amelia’s early years growing up in London and Suffolk, her formative careers in music and literature, and her passion for art. We will learn about the characters that inspired her and the great turning point in her personal life – an 1857 trip to Rome!
Thursday 3 July 2025, 18:00-19:30 (UK time)
Week Two - A Thousand Miles Up the Nile with Amelia B Edwards
In 1873, Amelia and Lucy Renshaw took a steamer to Egypt to escape wet weather in the south of France. Not wholly unplanned, the journey would still transform Amelia’s life completely. This session will unpack the narrative in her best-selling travelogue, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, and her voyage and companions. We will see Egypt as she saw it through her watercolours preserved today at the EES, Peggy Joy Egyptology Library, Somerville College and Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.
Philae Temple from the Gateway of Nectanebo, as painted by Amelia Edwards in 1874 (Principal and Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford), and the temple today.
Thursday 10 July 2025, 18:00-19:30 (UK time)
Week Three - Founding the Fund: The legacy of Amelia B Edwards
This final session will consider Amelia’s final years, and her legacy in Egyptology through her work for the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society). On her death, she was crowned the ‘Queen of Egyptology’ by the Secretary of the American Branch of the EEF and she continues to cast a long shadow over British Egyptology. We will investigate this later impact through the journey of an oil painting by Florence Blakiston Attwood-Matthews in the EES collections and on loan at Bolton Museum today. This session will end with a quiz and social session.
Oil painting of EES founder, Amelia B Edwards, (currently on display at Bolton Museum).
Booking and information
Register for your place in advance using the link below. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about your booking. Reminder emails with links for joining the event will be sent by email closer to the start date too. If you do not receive your email, then please check your junk folders before contacting the Egypt Exploration Society. The course will be held on our Zoom platform and attendees will be able to interact by asking questions, using the chat and polls. It is not necessary to have a working webcam or microphone for this course. The online course will be complemented by Google Drive, where resources will be uploaded.
Please ensure that you have read our guide to attending EES online events before the course begins.
