The Unique museum

In 1890, Jesse Haworth and Martyn Kennard presented to the Manchester Museum the unique and valuable set of objects of daily use from Petrie’s excavations at Kahun, Illahun and Gurob. These constituted one of the best collections of Egyptian antiquities in Britain. They were only the first of a succession of gifts made by Haworth to the Museum, which he acquired from Petrie’s excavations. For some nine years, he and Kennard were the sole major supporters of his excavations. His magnificent donations to the Manchester collection kindled great interest in Egyptology in the area. The Museum’s first major Egyptian acquisition had been the gift of a mummy with its coffins belonging to ‘Asru, Chantress of Amun in the Temple of Karnak’. These were presented to the Manchester Natural History Society (founders of the Museum) in 1825, when it was claimed that this was ‘one of the best preserved mummies in the kingdom’. It was, however, Jesse Haworth who contributed most to the Egyptian collection, and the year 1911 was an important landmark in the Museum’s history.

Ashmolean Museum

His donations to the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the Egypt Exploration Fund were generous, but it was his support of Petrie’s excavations in the Fayoum which was particularly significant. Petrie had become Hon. Joint Secretary of the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1883, and excavated for the Fund in Egypt during 1884–6. However, he quarrelled with them, and decided to set up an archaeological body of his own, which would be independent. With his original source of funding for excavation no longer available, he faced considerable difficulties, but through the good offices of Amelia Edwards, Jesse Haworth was approached. Petrie received the welcome news that a new avenue of support for his excavations in Egypt had appeared. In his book Seventy Years in Archaeology, Petrie recalls this important turning point, While in England, I heard that the offer of help in excavating came from Jesse Haworth of Manchester, through the kind intervention of Miss Edwards.

Egypt Exploration

Amelia Edwards was a remarkable woman who founded the Egypt Exploration Fund to further the aims of scientific excavation and publication, and to generate public support and enthusiasm for Egyptology. In her will, she bequeathed her library and valuable collection of Egyptian antiquities to University College London; she also left a sum of £2,400 to found the first chair of Egyptology in Britain, at University College London, expressing a wish that Petrie should be appointed. He held this post for forty years. It was a meeting with Amelia Edwards, shortly after his return from Egypt, that inspired Jesse Haworth to give financial support to
the subject, and in 1887, he began to show his enthusiasm in a practical way when he secured the throne, chessboard and chessmen of the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, which had been discovered in Egypt in the previous year. The throne was in pieces, but it was skilfully reassembled and exhibited at the Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester in 1887. When the exhibition closed, Haworth presented it to the British Museum.