Margaret Collingridge Wheeler

Margaret Collingridge Wheeler, Lady Wheeler (1916–1990, Collingridge, first married surname Norfolk, commonly known as Kim), was an Australian archaeologist who worked at Maiden Castle, Dorset with Mortimer Wheeler in the 1930s and at Jericho and Jerusalem with Dame Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s and 1960s. She authored books about archaeology for a general audience.

Biography Born in 1916 in Sydney, Australia, Collingridge Wheeler went to England to be educated. Several other notable women archaeologists took part in this excavation, including Veronica Seton-Williams, Joan du Plat Taylor, Leslie Scott, Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop, and Margot Eates.

Collingridge Wheeler joined Wheeler's excavation at Camp d'Artus near Huelgoat, Finistère, Brittany in 1938 and subsequent explorations in Normandy in 1939. Wheeler's biographer Jacquetta Hawkes noted that Wheeler had developed romantic feelings for Collingridge Wheeler by this stage, although he married Mavis de Vere Cole in 1939, three years after the death of his first wife Tessa.

Collingridge Wheeler worked on the excavation of the tombs of Tsambres and Aphendrika at Agios Philion in Cyprus in 1938.

Collingridge Wheeler joined the ATS 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. In 1945 she married Sir Mortimer Wheeler when Wheeler was Director-General of Archaeology in India. She travelled extensively with Wheeler to sites in India, Iran and Afghanistan.

In 1954, Collingridge Wheeler joined Dame Kathleen Kenyon's excavations at Jericho. Her book Walls of Jericho (1956) describes the excavation and personnel. In the 1960s Collingridge Wheeler joined Kenyon's excavations at Jerusalem.

Collingridge Wheeler was a devout Roman Catholic, and although separated from Wheeler in 1956, they never divorced. He died in 1976. Collingridge Wheeler died in 1990.

Selected publications (as Margaret Wheeler) 1956. Walls of Jericho. London: Chatto and Windus. 1957. A Book of Archaeology. London: Cassell & Co. 1959. A Second Book of Archaeology. London: Cassell & Co. 1967. Editor. History Was Buried. A Source Book of Archaeology. London: Hart Publishing Company.