Helen Tirard 1852 – 1943
Lady Helen Mary Tirard
(born Helen Mary Beloe)
Egyptologist.
April 1852 – 21 May 1943
Lady Helen Mary Tirard: A tribute by Clare Lewis
When Lady Helen Mary Tirard died aged 92 in 1943, her death passed without notice in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (JEA), the publication vehicle of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES)[1]. This was despite her membership of the EES Committee for almost fifty years from 1888 until her retirement in 1937. Mrs Tirard, as she then was, appeared in the first printed membership list of the fund in 1885. She became a regional fundraiser for EES in 1887, and by 1888 she was one of the two women[2] in the twenty-three members of the central committee.
The EES had been founded in 1882 by a woman who is another focus of this project, Amelia Blanford Edwards (1831-1892)[3]. Key meetings around the foundation of this fund were held at UCL in Bloomsbury, although the premises of the EES itself ended up being in Marylebone until 1961 when it relocated to Bloomsbury. Edwards had visited Egypt in 1873-4 and was to devote the rest of her life to Egyptology, setting up the EES to examine, record and excavate sites in Egypt. Edwards was a life-long supporter of women, and the structure of the EES gave key roles to women as secretaries, subscribers, active fund raisers and committee members.
The EES’s Annual Report for 1943 did include a very short tribute to Tirard, noting her long tenure and that ‘she will be remembered above all for her admirable translation of the standard work by Professor Adolf Erman’. But there are asymmetries of treatment at work here. First, the EES recognised the death of male archaeologists and philologists in the 1943 JEA albeit only briefly. Second it is only through their recognition of her husband’s death in their 1928 Annual Report (he was never a member of the EES) that the EES offers a broader recognition of her work:
Lady Tirard is one of three living members whose connection with the Egypt Exploration Fund goes back to its earlier days …. She has served continuously on the Committee since 1888 and is the unobtrusive but persistent champion of the large body of members who are unable to take an active part in the affairs of the Society.
Even here her role is understated. Her contribution to public Egyptology was more than her membership of the EES Committee, the translation of a key Egyptological work or being ‘unobtrusive’. It was down to Lord Kenyon (the then retired Director of the British Museum who had been on the EES Committee himself since 1898) to write a letter to The Times in recognition of her contribution. His praise was more fulsome:
[A] pioneer in the study of Egyptian archaeology … she used to give lectures to students and visitors [at the British Museum] long before the institution of official guide-lecturers. She was for many years an active member of the Council of the Egypt Exploration Fund, and never lost her interest in the subject.
It is difficult to trace what stimulated Tirard’s initial interests in Egyptology. She was born in Suffolk to a rector’s family, but by the early 1880s was connected to Bloomsbury. Reginald Stuart Poole, who was a Keeper at the British Museum, introduced her to the Egyptology collection and later to the EES[4] (in the 1885 membership list she was recorded as one of his subscribers). Evidently he held her in high regard. She began lecturing on Egyptology to ladies in the British Museum galleries in 1881, over ten years prior to its study being formalised within the university sector by Petrie at UCL and a year before the foundation of the EES. She was also admitted to the British Museum Reading Rooms around the time she began to lecture. Sadly, however, the admissions records of the British Museum Reading Rooms, which would have included her references demonstrating family or other personal connections with Poole and Egyptology, no longer exist for this period.
I discuss her lectures in my EES article that is listed in this website but it is worth recapping here. From her second set of lectures onwards the timing and nature of her lectures at the British Museum were announced in the pages of the influential Victorian literary journal The Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art. The objectives of Tirard’s second lecture series were recorded in this publication as providing ‘an outline of the history, religion, manners, and customs of ancient Egypt’. Similar announcements followed in November 1883, February 1884 and October 1884. In May 1885 these announcements had an addition: ‘[t]he proceeds will be given to the Egypt Exploration Fund’, and a donation of £5 was made to the EES.
The next three years saw her developing her Egyptological interests. Her ties with the EES were strengthened and formalised as a local honorary secretary for the London W. Metropolitan District and by 1887-8 as a committee member. Around this time, she also began to frame her lectures with her female audience in mind with, for example, her 1887 lectures covering ‘Life in Ancient Egypt – at Home -at Work – at Play’. In 1888 she also took what was to be her only trip to Egypt and produced her first Egyptology article – ‘A Lady in Ancient Egypt’. This publication was in The Woman’s World, which was at the time under the short-lived editorship of Oscar Wilde. His co-editor, Arthur Fish, later reflected that Wilde ‘secured a brilliant company of contributors which included the leaders of feminine thought and influence in every branch of work’[5]. As a lady lecturer at the British Museum, and committee member of the EES, Tirard was evidently held in high esteem.
Already an experienced lecturer in Egyptology, she enrolled as a student at UCL in 1889 in Poole’s archaeology classes. By this stage Poole was the Yates Professor of Archaeology at UCL (Petrie did not become the first Egyptology Professor in the UK at UCL until 1892). By 1891 Tirard was appointed as Lecturer on Antiquities in the Kings College Ladies Department. Although this institution was based in Kensington, she continued to use the British Museum for tours. This was to be another busy year for Tirard, as it also marked the publication of her first book Sketches from a Nile Steamer with her husband, the result of her trip to Egypt in 1888.
In what is an unusual role reversal for the time, it appears that Tirard wrote the text, and her husband supplied the illustrations. In the preface she established her credibility to be writing on the subject: ‘after some years of study in the British Museum and helping many students there to realize the interest of the study of Egyptology, I had … the opportunity of going … as far as Aboo-Simbel [sic]’.
She continued to lecture at the British Museum until 1894, in conjunction with her role as a lecturer at King’s College. During this year her translation of Erman’s Life in Ancient Egypt was published. Some of her British Museum lectures were also published in 1910 as The Book of the Dead, demonstrating her competences both as a communicator and as a translator of Ancient Egyptian.
She became Lady Tirard in 1916 as a result of her husband’s contributions to the medical field and from this time onwards she seems to have taken a more active role with the EES Committee rather than the more public sphere of lectures and publications (her last publication – an article in the JEA – appears to have been in 1915).
In exploring her role from this time, the description by the EES as an ‘unobtrusive but persistent champion of the large body of members who are unable to take an active part in the affairs of the Society’ appears to be inappropriate. The EES Committee Minute Books and archives show that her wise counsel was sought by key archaeologists working for the EES over the timing of resolutions and personnel problems and she was key in introducing John Pendlebury to the EES. He wanted to be a ‘good archaeologist’ and Tirard, a respected member of the Egyptological community, used her network to provide him with connections and introductions. He was to become a key archaeologist for the EES in the 1930s and in a reversal of fortunes his contribution to Egyptology is well known[6], unlike Tirard. Here the adjective ‘unobtrusive’ does appear apposite in terms of her omission from the historical record and lack of recognition of her contributions.
Until recently histories of Egyptology have tended to prioritise the stories of those leading fieldwork at excavation sites or key philological innovators. Although there are some notable exceptions, typically in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, these individuals were male because of the restrictive frameworks and gender ideologies of the period. The work of local workers on excavations, and the practices of Egyptology away from the excavation site, are becoming more broadly recognised within the history of Egyptology. In order to examine the subject’s configuration more fully, and as part of these efforts, instead of looking for women in locations that they largely did not occupy, attention should turn to the roles and jobs women such as Lady Helen Mary Tirard actually did. Through this focus the reality of their ground-breaking and innovative institutional work is better understood and their contributions and work brought back into the light.
Suggested Readings:
Hill, Kate. Women and Museums, 1850-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016.
Sheppard, Kathleen. ‘Margaret Alice Murray and archaeological training in the
classroom: Preparing “Petrie’s Pups.”’ In Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary
measures, ed. William Carruthers, 113–28. London: Routledge, 2014.
Sheppard, Kathleen. Tea on the Terrace. Hotels and Egyptologists’ social networks, 1885-1925. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022.
Stevenson, Alice. ‘“To my wife, on whose toil most of my work has depended”: women on excavation.’ In Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: Characters and collections, ed. Alice Stevenson, 102–5. London: UCL Press, 2015.
Stevenson, Alice. Scattered finds: Archaeology, Egyptology and museums. London: UCL Press, 2019.
Thornton, Amara. Archaeologists in print: Publishing for the people. London: UCL Press, 2018.
Clare Lewis is a Lecturer and Lead personal tutor on the Societies Pathway of the UCL Arts & Sciences (BASc) programme. Her current research focuses on the history of Egyptology, applying the methodologies of the history and sociology of science to examine the development of Egyptology as an academic subject in the UK, using inaugural lectures as heuristic anchors.
Ed Lewis, Clare & Moshenska, Gabriel: Life-Writing in the History of Archaeology : Life writing in the History of Archaeology – UCL Press
[1] The Egypt Exploration Society was founded in 1882 as the Egypt Exploration Fund. It changed its name from the Egypt Exploration Fund to Egypt Exploration Society in 1919 but for ease throughout this piece it is referred to as the EES.
[2] The central committee is listed ex. the President and the Vice-Presidents of the EES, one of whom was Amelia Edwards. The other woman listed in central committee was Miss Herbert. Later to become Mrs McClure, further information about her can be found in a piece written by Brigitte Balanda: https://www.ees.ac.uk/the-multi-talented-mrs-mcclure
[3] For Amelia Edwards see, for example, Brenda Moon. More Usefully Employed. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2006.
[4] He took an active role in the founding of the EES.
[5] Arthur Fish. Oscar Wilde as Editor. Harper’s Weekly. 58 (1913), pp.18-20.
[6] See, for example, Imogen Grundon. The Rash Adventurer: A Life of John Pendlebury. London: Libri, 2007.
MINI BIOGRAPHY
Some Key Achievements and Interests
From 1882 Lectured on Egyptology to ladies at the British Museum raising funds for the Egypt Exploration Fund.
1886-7 Became local Honorary Secretary for the London West Metropolitan District.
1887 Offered a course ‘Life in Ancient Egypt – at Home – at Work – at Play’ at the British Museum.
1888 Offered two courses and a formal syllabus on Ancient Egypt following her visit to Egypt.
1889 Began lecturing at the King’s College Ladies Department, including tours of the British Museum.
Served on the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund (which became the Egypt Exploration Society in 1919) from 1888 to 1937.
1890s Continued lecturing at King’s College Ladies Department, expanding her focus to include Egyptian religious life and death practices and The Book of the Dead. From 1894 her courses were advertised as aimed at women aged 16 and over.
1891 Appointed as Lecturer on Antiquities in the King’s College Ladies’ Department.
Issues
As a woman, she was not expected to rise beyond a supportive role. She had to develop her reputation outside the academic world before she was accepted and recognised as an expert in her field.
Connection to Bloomsbury
Worked as a “perambulating lady guide” and lecturer at the British Museum.
Used British Museum Reading Room.
Donated items from her Egyptology collections to schools and local museums.
Writings / Publications include:
1887-8 A Lady in Ancient Egypt.
1891 Sketches from a Nile Steamer: For the Use of Travellers in Egypt (with her husband, Nestor Tirard).
Translation of Life in Ancient Egypt by the German Egyptologist Adolf Eman.
See: 1910 Publication of her British Museum lectures as The Book of the Dead.
Further reading
Clare Lewis: The Lady Vanishes: The Case of Helen Mary Tirard https://www.academia.edu/42104049/The_lady_vanishes_the_case_of_Helen_Mary_Tirard
Archaeologists-in-Print.pdf Amara Thornton.
Wikisource contributors Retrieved 6 February 2023, from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Helen_Mary_Tirard
Helen Tirard: https://beyond-notability.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Item:Q1065