Margaret Benson (16 June 1865 – 13 May 1916) was an English author and Egyptologist best known for her excavation of the Precinct of Mut, a temple compound on the east bank of the Nile.
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Early life and family
Margaret was born in 1865 near Reading, Berkshire, England, as one of the six children of Edward White Benson, an Anglican educator and clergyman (later Archbishop of Canterbury), and his wife Mary Sidgwick Benson, sister of philosopher Henry Sidgwick who co-founded Newnham College, a women-only college of the University of Cambridge. Margaret attended Truro Girls High School, which her father had founded while the first bishop of Truro. At the age of 18, Margaret was one of the first women to be admitted to Oxford University, where she attended the recently founded Lady Margaret Hall. Her intelligence and accomplishments were remarkable, as noted by her tutors, and John Ruskin praised her drawing and watercolour skills, inviting her to study at his school. Margaret was considered more academically successful than her more famous siblings, and in 1886, she tied for first place in England on the General Examination for Women.
Of Margaret's five siblings, her brothers included novelist Edward Frederic Benson, poet and master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, Arthur Christopher Benson, and Catholic priest and author Robert Hugh Benson. Several of the Benson family suffered from mental illnesses, with Margaret's father Edward Benson described as being prone to long periods of depression and violent mood swings. None of the Benson siblings married, and at least three of them, Arthur, Fred, and Margaret, were likely homosexual. Margaret's mother, Mary Benson, was also involved in homosexual relationships.