Box People and Places
Latest Issue 30 Winter 2020-21 
  • This Issue
    • Rudloe History
    • Roman Mosaics in Box
    • Drewetts and Bassetts
    • Hatt House
    • Leslie Bence
    • Bill Peter
    • Odee After Maisie
    • Crane 57
    • Guyana and Box
    • Kingsdown Residents
    • Ashley Farm
    • Cricket Club Part 2
    • Land Girl Remembers
    • Historic Tour of Box
    • The Boxfields Bungalows
    • Remembering Dr Jim
    • Bullocks of Melksham
  • Northeys
    • Early Family
    • World of the Northeys
    • Unpaid Bill: Smith & Northey
    • Family Tree
    • George Wilbraham
    • Life in Box
    • George Edward
    • Safe & Steady Son
    • Army Life
    • Theatrical Events
    • Rolls-Royce Pioneer
    • Northey Donkey Cart
    • Other Children
    • Later Family
    • Selling Up
    • Northey Legacy
  • Previous
    • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
    • Issue 28 - VE Day
    • Issue 27 - Northey
    • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
    • Earlier Issues 1 - 25 >
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
      • Issue 19 - Outbreak WW2
      • Issue 18 - Building Bargates
      • Issue 17 - Railway Changes
      • Issue 16 - Quarries
      • Issue 15 - Rail & Quarry
      • Issue 14 - Civil War
      • Issue 13: Box Revels
      • Issue 12 - Where You Live
      • Issue 11 - Tudor & Stuart
      • Issue 10 - End of Era 1912
      • Issue 9 - Health & Leisure
      • Issue 8 - Farming & Rural
      • Issue 7 - Manufacturing
      • Issue 6 - Celebrations
      • Issue 5 - Victorian Centre
      • Issue 4 - Slump after WW1
      • Issue 3 - Great War 1914-18
      • Issue 2 - 1950s & 1960s
      • Issue 1 - 1920s
    • Index By Author
    • Partner Sites & Book Reviews
    • Currency Converter
  • People
  • Places
  • General
  • Series
    • Box School Series >
      • Box Charity School
      • Formation of Box Schools
      • Schools WW1 to WW2
      • Box Schools, 1920s
      • Boys' School, 1927
      • Evacuee Schoolboy 1941
      • Box School 1945-83
      • Class of 1954
    • Box Farms >
      • Weavern Farm and Mill
      • Old Jockey Farm
      • Hill House Farm
      • Coles Farm
    • Box Library Project
    • NATS Trails >
      • Heritage Trails 2019
      • Conservation Areas
      • Box NATS Trails 2018
      • Alcombe and Shockerwick
      • Mills on Box Brook
      • Saxon Footpaths
      • New History Trails 2017
      • Roman Road
      • Box Hill Trail
      • Georgian Middlehill
      • History Trails 2016
      • Mad House
      • Thomas Railway
      • Market Place Origins
    • Prehistory >
      • Kingsdown's Menhir Secrets
    • Roman >
      • Early History Hoard
      • Roman Road Finds
      • Ancient Discovery
    • Early Medieval
    • Feudal >
      • Magna Carta in Box
      • Monk's Tale
      • Norman Conquest of Box
      • Tracing Bartholomew Bigod
      • When it Rained and Rained
    • Late Medieval
    • Tudor & Stuart >
      • Box in Civil War 1642 - 51
      • Wolf Hall and Box
      • Marsh Family
      • People during Civil War
      • Original Box Revels
      • Tudor Local Government
      • Ordinary People
      • Religion in Box, 1475-1660
      • Where You Live in 1626 >
        • Ashley
        • Central Box
        • Ditteridge
        • Hatt, Old Jockey and Blue Vein
        • Hazelbury
        • Henley and Washwells
        • Kingsdown
        • Middlehill
        • Rudloe
      • Hugh Speke Shaped Box
      • Walter Bushnell
      • Reformation in Box, 1535
      • Ten Tudor & Stuart Mansions
      • Death at Thomas à Becket >
        • For Whom Box Bell Tolled
      • Tudor & Stuart Timeline
      • John Aubrey's Box
    • Georgian >
      • Napoleon versus Box
      • Revolutionary Times
      • Coaches in 1830
      • Agricultral Census 1803
      • Tithe Apportionment
      • Slavery Families
      • Mullins Family, Schoolmasters
      • Box Churchyard
      • Sheridan's Duel
      • Tree of Life at Middlehill
      • Box's Highwayman
      • 1752: Very Odd Year
      • Witches, Quakers and Chapels
      • The New Road, 1761
      • Vulgarity in Box
      • Rebuilding the Village
      • Speke Family
      • Georgian People
      • Georgian Timeline
    • Rail & Quarry >
      • Railway Men Remembered
      • Old Clay Pipe
      • Recalling Box Quarries >
        • Oily Series
      • Quarrymen and their Families
      • Built in Stoneyards
      • Quarries in 2000
      • Single Ticket
      • Trainspotting in Box
      • Light Through Box Tunnel >
        • More Light on Tunnel
        • Brunel Myth
        • Sunrise at Box Tunnel
      • Marl at Middlehill
      • James Moodey
      • Railway Staff in Box
      • Impact of Railways
      • Vivash Follow-up
      • Underground Quarries
      • Lambert's Stoneyard
      • Cranes at Work
      • Railway Policeman
      • Terror in Tunnels
      • Vivash Family
      • Railway Buildings and More
      • Why Railways Came to Box
      • Box in 1830
      • Building Box Tunnel
      • Boxing and Quarrymen >
        • More Jem Mace
      • Clift Quarry Steam Loco
      • Timeline 1830 - 1870
      • Trial Shaft
      • Underbridges
    • Late Victorian >
      • Edwardian Love Story
      • Northey Estate Sale 1912-1923
      • Box Fete & Friendly Societies
      • Methodism in Box
      • George Reeves, Quarryman Ganger
      • Dipsomania in Box
      • 1870 Start of Era
      • Victorian Farming
      • Ashley Leigh
      • Steam Mill and Cottages
      • Class Division
      • Grove Inn
      • Box House
      • Celebrations >
        • Jubilee Mug 1887
      • Parish Magazine History
      • Postcards of Box >
        • Postcard Solved
      • Skeate, Speck and Ponting
      • 1899 A Year of Festivities
      • Valens Terrace
      • Village Outings >
        • Excitement for Outings
        • Cycling Craze
      • Timeline 1840 to now
      • Local Pubs
    • Great War >
      • Photos 2014
      • Cecil Lambert's War
      • VAD Working Parties
      • After the War
      • Box School Research
      • School WW1 Projects
      • List of Servicemen
      • Embroideries
      • In Memoriam
      • Never Forgotten
      • Where They Lived
      • Christmas 1913 and 1914
      • Children in WW1
      • Neighbour Against Neighbour
      • Home & Far Away
      • Finding Private Hall
      • Box Before the War
    • Inter War Years >
      • Shops in 1920s
      • Fascism
      • Sports Day 1931
    • WW2 Index >
      • World War 2 Scrapbook
      • Box in 1943
      • Aircraft Factories
      • D Day Implications, 1944
      • Peace
      • VE Day 1945
      • After the War
      • Epitaph to WW2
      • Wartime Memories
      • Wartime People
      • Bath Blitz 1942
      • Invasion Threat 1942
      • Children in War
      • Air Raids on Box
      • Military Camps
      • Royal Visits
      • Your WW2 Tributes
      • Dunkirk Evacuation
      • Box Home Guard >
        • Home Guard Names
      • Life at Home
      • Evacuee Children
      • Village & Ammunitions Depot
      • Memories of WW2
      • In Service at Home
      • At War
      • Lead up to War
      • Servicemen & Women
      • Timeline 1939-45
      • VE Day Remembered
      • Dennis Moss >
        • Hazelbury Air Crash
        • Air Crash Wreath
        • Flight Crew Lost
        • Graham Brayshaw
      • Evacuated From Belgium
      • WW2 Resting Place
      • Sherman Tank Disaster
    • Modern >
      • Modern Art
      • Centre of Commerce
      • Shoe Sculpture >
        • Stiletto Sculpture
      • Characters in 1940s
      • Teenage Rebels, 1960s
      • Swingin Sixties or Not?
      • A Box Childhood
      • Box People from 1950s
      • Shops in 1950 Box
      • Box in 1950s
      • Village in 1950s
      • Summer of 1959
      • reCollections
      • Residents After the War
      • Coach Trips 1950s
      • Never Had It So Good !
  • Contact
    • Blog
    • Q&A
The Woman Who Loved Mummies: Rachel Amelia Lee (nee Oldroyd)       
Research Contributed by Emma Simpson      March 2019
Picture
Display of artefacts at Beyond Beauty exhibition at One Temple Place (courtesy Kirklees Council)
​The well-known BBC presenter, Samira Ahmed, recently looked at female influences on the discovery and collection of Egyptian mummies in a programme on Radio 3.[1] One of these women, Rachel Amelia Lee (nee Oldroyd) lived at Spa House, Box, in the 1930s and died there on 22 July 1932, aged 74. She was an intrepid Victorian explorer who helped bring ancient Egyptian artefacts back to the people of Dewsbury, artefacts that are now in the collections of Kirklees Museums and Galleries.
 
Katina Bill is Head Curator at Kirklees Museums & Galleries and has worked with Dr Margaret Serpico, a consultant Egyptologist who has worked in Egyptology collections in England and co-curated the Beyond Beauty exhibition in London, to better understand items in the Kirklees Collection and uncover details of the life of Ms Oldroyd.
​Oldroyd Family
Amelia wasn’t local to Box, Wiltshire. She was born at Hanging Heaton, Soothill, Dewsbury, Yorkshire, in 1858 second daughter of George Oldroyd and Elizabeth Oates. The family were mill owners and Amelia’s grandfather Mark Oldroyd ran a cloth manufacturing business employing 30 men in Dewsbury in 1851. Amelia’s father George expanded the Sprinkwell Mill and the family became extremely wealthy in the years of Victorian economic boom. George’s death in 1876 was recorded in the Dewsbury Reporter in the most glowing terms: George Oldroyd, Esq, was a hand-loom weaver in his early years and by his diligence and a remarkable aptitude for business he, his father and his brother John succeeded in raising themselves to a position of great affluence, establishing the firm of M Oldroyd and Sons, the largest of its kind in the world.[2] During the funeral service, the firm did a most unusual thing, the mills of the firm M Oldroyd and Sons ceased to run and a large number of operatives assembled (to pay their respects) within the building.
 
The Oldroyds were one of the many wealthy families in the Dewsbury area. Amelia’s uncle Sir Mark Oldroyd was also a mill owner and Dewsbury Member of Parliament, who lived at Hyrstlands, Batley, a Grade II listed building, built by him in 1891.
Picture
Bagshaw Egyptology exhibition (courtesy Kirklees Council)
Dr Edwin Lee
Amelia’s husband, Edwin Lee, was a renowned local doctor, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, England General Practitioners by the age of 28 in 1881. Edwin and Amelia married at Dewsbury in 1899 when he was 46 and she was 41, their first marriage and neither had any children. They lived at 24 Halifax Road in 1901 with three servants including a French maid and were on the same street in 1911 in Broomfield House, possibly the same house renamed. Edwin moved in important local circles and was later remembered by James Seaton, Bishop of Wakefield, as a very true friend to many. The bishop recalled that when he attended the doctor as a young boy, Bishop Seaton learned his way around the streets of Dewsbury traversing them in a hansom cab.[3]
 
Edwin was too old for active service in the First World War but he appears to have volunteered as an officer probably assisting the recuperation of injured servicemen. He was given an officer’s award of the Voluntary Officer’s Decoration and used the title Colonel.[4]
 
Egypt Exploration Fund
Amelia took full advantage of the opportunities her background afforded her, for both personal and public benefit. It used to be thought that Amelia played a largely administrative role in fundraising for the discovery of artefacts as the local honorary Secretary for the Egypt Exploration Fund, Dewsbury Branch.[5] She personally donated contributions to the Fund both before and after her marriage and persuaded her siblings to do so. Her contemporary obituary said simply She was greatly interested in Egyptology and, as a result of her efforts in obtaining subscribers to the Egypt Exploration Fund, Mrs Lee was responsible for obtaining the valuable collection of Egyptian relics in the museum in Crow Nest Park, Dewsbury.[6]
 
The Fund was founded in London in 1882 to explore, survey, and excavate in Egypt. Its main purpose was to produce publications and lectures but it was licenced to export a portion of discoveries and there is no doubt that the collections of artefacts in British museums was part of its aim. We nowadays regard this as tantamount to looting but, at the time, it was regarded as an attempt to conserve antiquities in public hands and make them accessible to view. Many wealthy mill-owning daughters and wives were caught up with enthusiasm to support the Fund and it is alleged that they were the main instrument in saving textiles and other intimate small portable objects.[7]  ​
Picture
Flinders and Hilda Petrie in 1897 (attribution unknown, courtesy Wikipedia)
New Discoveries about Amelia’s Egyptology Work
But her administrative work was only part of her efforts and I love the fact it’s now confirmed she went to the tomb in Egypt to assist the work of the eminent archaeologist Sir William Flinders Petrie, sometimes called the father of scientific archaeology! There was a deep connection with the Fund as, from the outset of his career, the Fund supported him financially and approved his appointment as Professor of Egyptology, University of Central London.
 
Amelia went to visit the Nile and the antiquities with a relative in 1892 and joined up with Petrie and his wife Hilda at the extensive archaeological site at Amarna, Egypt.[8] In his autobiography Petrie records the visits of his friend Amelia:[9]
 
Amelia Oldroyd, with her nephew Borwick, stayed for ten days.
Miss Oldroyd and Borwick followed as soon as there was room for them and stayed long enough to see the first tombs opened.
For nearly a month she [Hilda] kept to her bed with a fever; she ate little, and Miss Oldroyd, arriving on her usual visit, stayed on to nurse her and to tempt her appetite with little dishes.
The intrepid Miss Oldroyd and nephew would be staying for a time​.
Picture
Recreated tomb in Batley Museum (courtesy Kirklees Council)
Amelia’s Collection of Artefacts
Amelia arranged for hundreds of Egyptian artefacts to be sent to the Dewsbury Museum where they were held for many years until transfer to the Bagshaw Museum in Batley. She recorded her finds in leather-bound catalogues in the archive of the Bagshaw Museum. She was one of the first to explore a burial chamber at Abydos and this has now been recreated in the museum.
 
Many of the exhibits are mummy wrappings, tapestries and textiles, which presumably Amelia was interested in and knowledgeable about. There are also some fascinating cartonnages (funerary masks) made of linen and papyrus and decorated in sumptuous blue, red and gold.
Picture
Picture
​Exhibits in Bagshaw Museum, Batley (courtesy Kirklees Council)
​Conclusion
On Amelia’s death, most of her estate of £14, 551 was left to her nephews and nieces, Geoffrey and Margaret Inman and Hilda Mary Swift but she also left £500 to my faithful friend and cook Elizabeth Jenks, £300 to my kind maid Isabel Simpson and £200 to Tom Lever manservant.[10]
 
Kirklees curator, Katina Bill, said We owe a great debt to Amelia and her work to bring Egyptian artefacts to her home town.  Without her, Bagshaw Museum would not have its stunning Kingdom of Osiris gallery filled with mummy masks, Egyptian jewellery and mystical amulets which have been enjoyed by generations of local people.
 
I am thrilled when an aspect of history (often the role of women) emerges out of the historic fog and challenges all our concepts about the story. In case you were hoping for a photograph of Amelia or Edwin, I haven’t been able to find one. Is there anybody out there who can help please?
 
Family Tree
George Oldroyd (1824 – 1876 or 1889) married Elizabeth Oates (1828 - 1903) at Dewsbury in 1853. They lived in some style at Stony Hurst, Track Road, Batley, Dewsbury from at least 1871, when George had made enough money to retire age 47. In 1881 they had a cook, two housemaids and a domestic page. Elizabeth was still there in 1901 with four servants. Children:
Ellen Elizabeth (b 1854); George Henry (b 1857); Rachel Amelia (1858 – 22 July 1932); Sarah Louie (b 1861); and Mary Adelaide (b 1862).
 
Rachel Amelia married Dr Edwin Lee (b 1853) at Dewsbury in 1899.
​References
[1] Samira Ahmed, The Victorian Queens of Ancient Egypt, 3 February 2019, BBC Radio 3 and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-47093041
[2] Dewsbury Reporter, 26 August 1876
[3] The Leeds Mercury, 28 October 1937
[4] Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 23 July 1932
[5] Report of the Twelfth Ordinary General Meeting of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1897-98
[6] The Yorkshire Post, 23 July 1932
[7] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-47093041
[8] London Evening Standard, 30 June 1897
[9] Flinders Petrie, A life in Archaeology, 1985, Victor Gollancz, p219, 228, 245 and 226
[10] Bath & Chronicle Weekly Gazette, 19 November 1932; The Yorkshire Post, 14 November 1932 and Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 14 November 1932
Back to Issue 24
Beyond Beauty Exhibition