John Gardner Wilkinson

Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (5 October 1797 – 29 October 1875) was an English traveller, writer and pioneer Egyptologist of the 19th century. He is often referred to as "the Father of British Egyptology".

Childhood and education Wilkinson was born in Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire. His father was a Westmoreland clergyman, the Reverend John Wilkinson, an amateur enthusiast for antiquities. Wilkinson inherited a modest income from his early-deceased parents. Sent by his guardian to Harrow School in 1813, he later went up to Exeter College, Oxford in 1816. Wilkinson ultimately took no degree and, suffering from ill-health, decided to travel to Italy. There in 1819 he met the antiquarian Sir William Gell and resolved to study Egyptology.

First sojourn in Egypt Wilkinson first arrived in Egypt in October 1821 as a young man of 24 years, remaining in the country for a further 12 years continuously.

Wilkinson died at Llandovery in 1875. He had bequeathed his collections with an elaborate catalogue in 1864 to his cousin, Lady Georgiana Stanhope Lovell, who had married Sir John Harper Crewe at Calke Abbey (now owned by the National Trust). He left his widow in poor financial straits from which she was rescued by a pension that Benjamin Disraeli persuaded the Queen to grant her.

Wilkinson's papers are now held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and form an invaluable resource to some of the earliest recorded states (dating to 1821 to 1856, before the advent of widespread tourism and collection) of many Egyptian monuments. His library and two plan folders are held in the National Trust collection at Calke Abbey. Many historic sites were subsequently damaged or lost altogether, making Wilkinson's work all the more important.

Publications

Materia Hieroglyphica (1828) The Topography of Thebes and General View of Egypt, London, 1835 Dalmatia and Montenegro, London, 1848 Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, including their private life, government, laws, arts, manufactures, religion, agriculture, and early history, derived from a comparison of the paintings, sculptures, and monuments still existing, with the accounts of ancient authors, (6 volumes, 1837–41). New edition, revised & corrected, 1878 "Modern Egypt and Thebes: being a description of Egypt; including the information required for travellers in that country." (1843) Full text available on google books.