Margaret Collingridge Wheeler, Lady Wheeler (formerly Norfolk; 1916–1990) was an Australian archaeologist who worked at
Maiden Castle, Dorset
Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hillfort south west of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age.
The earliest archaeological evidence of human ac ...
with
Mortimer Wheeler
Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales an ...
in the 1930s and at
Jericho
Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Gove ...
with Dame
Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s. She authored books about archaeology for a general audience.
Biography
Born in
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
, Australia, Collingridge went to England to be educated. She joined the excavation team at
Maiden Castle, Dorset
Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hillfort south west of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age.
The earliest archaeological evidence of human ac ...
where
Mortimer Wheeler
Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales an ...
and his first wife
Tessa Wheeler
Tessa Wheeler ( Verney; 27 March 1893 – 15 April 1936) was an archaeologist who made a significant contribution to excavation techniques and contributed to the setting up of major British archaeological institutions after the Second World War ...
were directing the examination of the Iron Age British hill fort. Several other notable women archaeologists took part in this excavation, including
Veronica Seton-Williams
Veronica Seton-Williams (20 April 1910 – 29 May 1992) FSA, was a British-Australian archaeologist who excavated in Egypt and the Near East, as well as in Britain. She studied history and political science at the University of Melbourne and t ...
,
Joan du Plat Taylor
Joan Mabel Frederica du Plat Taylor FSA (Glasgow, 26 June 1906 – Cambridge, 21 May 1983) was a British archaeologist and pioneer of underwater nautical archaeology.
Early life and education
Joan Mabel Frederica Du Plat Taylor was born in Gl ...
,
Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop
Kathleen Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop, (''née'' Clay, 27 March 1914 – 9 May 2011) was an English archaeologist and scholar of the Ancient Near East.
Early life
Kathleen Rachel Clay was born in London to Sir Charles Travis Clay, an antiquarian and ...
, and
Margot Eates
Margot Eates (23 June 1913 – 24 September 1994) was a British art historian and curator who led the London Museum (predecessor institution to the Museum of London) through the second world war.
Early life and education
Eates was born in Lon ...
.
She joined Wheeler's excavation at Camp d'Artus near
Huelgoat
Huelgoat (; meaning "High Forest") is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France.
Population
Inhabitants of Huelgoat are called in French ''Huelgoatains''.
Geography
Huelgoat is popular with tourists and holiday ...
,
Finistère
Finistère (, ; br, Penn-ar-Bed ) is a department of France in the extreme west of Brittany. In 2019, it had a population of 915,090. ,
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
in 1938 and subsequent explorations in
Normandy
Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
in 1939. Wheeler's biographer
Jacquetta Hawkes Jacquetta is a feminine given name which may refer to:
* Jacquetta of Luxembourg (1415/16–1472), Duchess of Bedford, Countess Rivers
* Jacquetta Hawkes (1910–1996), English archaeologist and writer
* Jacquetta May, British writer, actress and t ...
noted that Wheeler had developed romantic feelings for Collingridge by this stage, although he married Mavis de Vere Cole in 1939, three years after the death of his first wife Tessa.
Margaret Collingridge joined the
ATS
ATS or Ats may refer to:
Businesses
* ATS Wheels, or ''Auto Technisches Spezialzubehör'', a German wheel manufacturer and sponsor of a Formula One racing team
* ATS Automation Tooling Systems, an Ontario, Canada-based factory automation company
...
during the Second World War and learned range-finding. She met a childhood friend, Robert Norfolk, a submarine commander, whom she married. In 1941, Norfolk's submarine HMS ''Thorn'' went down in the Eastern Mediterranean. Margaret Norfolk married Sir
Mortimer Wheeler
Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales an ...
in 1945 when Wheeler was Director-General of Archaeology in India. She travelled extensively with Wheeler to sites in India, Iran and Afghanistan.
In 1954, Margaret joined Dame Kathleen Kenyon's excavations at Jericho. Her book ''Walls of Jericho'' (1956) describes the excavation and personnel. She followed its publication with ''A Book of Archaeology'' and ''A Second Book of Archaeology''. Her obituary in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' noted her reputation for producing popular books on the discipline.
[''The Times'' (1990).]
References
Sources
*Carr, L. 2012. ''Tessa Verney Wheeler: Women and Archaeology Before World War Two''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Cornwall, T. 1958. Digging Without Malice. ''The New Scientist''. 6 December, pp. 50–51.
*Davis, M. 2008. ''Dame Kathleen Kenyon: Digging Up the Holy Land''. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
*Hawkes, J. 1982. ''Mortimer Wheeler: Adventurer in Archaeology''. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
*Kenyon, K. 1957. ''Digging Up Jericho''. London: Ernest Benn.
*Matthews, R. 2003. ''The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: theories and approaches.'' London: Routledge.
*''The Times''. 1990. Lady Wheeler. The Times, 26 December, p. 10.
*Wheeler, M. 1956. ''Walls of Jericho''. London: Chatto and Windus.
*Wheeler, M. 1957. ''A Book of Archaeology''. London: Cassell & Co.
*Wheeler M. 1959. ''A Second Book of Archaeology''. London: Cassell & Co.
*Wheeler, R. E. M. 1943. ''Maiden Castle, Dorset''. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Society of Antiquaries.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collingridge Wheeler, Margaret
Australian archaeologists
Australian women archaeologists
1916 births
1990 deaths
20th-century archaeologists
Wives of knights