Margaret Benson was an English author and amateur Egyptologist.
Education
One of the six children of Edward White Benson, an Anglican clergyman (later Archbishop of Canterbury), and his wife Mary Sidgwick Benson, the sister of philosopher Henry Sidgwick, Margaret was one of the first women to be admitted to Oxford University, where she attended Lady Margaret Hall.
Career
She was the first woman to be granted a concession to excavate in Egypt. She suffered from frail health most of her life and was not able to continue the excavation after 1897. In 1907, she suffered a severe mental breakdown and died in 1916 (in the Priory, Roehampton) at the age of 51.
In the Benson family, several members suffered from mental illnesses, probably bipolar disorder.
Margaret had five siblings, none of whom married. She was known within the family as Maggie.
One brother was the novelist East. F. Benson. Another was A. C. Benson, the author of the lyrics to Elgar"s "Land of Hope and Glory" and master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.