Newberry, Percy Edward

Percy Edward Newberry M.A. O.B.E. was born on 23 April 1869 and died at his home in Godalming, England, on 7 August 1949. He was educated at King’s College School and King’s College, London and later mentored in Egyptology by Reginald Stuart Poole of the British Museum and Francis Llewellyn Griffith. Newberry began his career at the Egypt Exploration Fund and, from 1890 to 1894, headed an expedition to investigate the tombs of Middle Kingdom nomarchs at Beni Hasan and El Bersha. In 1893-4, he published a two-volume monograph Beni Hasan which remains a definitive account of the tombs there. Newberry then operated as a freelance excavator from 1895-1901, undertaking a survey of the Necropolis at Thebes. In 1902 Newberry worked on the Catalogue Général of Egyptian Antiquities at the Cairo Museum.

In 1906 Newberry was appointed Brunner Professor of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, a position he held until 1919. In 1919 Newberry was appointed O.B.E. In 1923, he served as President of the Anthropological Section of the British Association, and from 1926 to 1927, he was Vice-President of the Royal Anthropological Institute. In 1929 Newberry accepted the chair of Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology at the University of Egypt, Cairo, a post he held until 1933.

Newberry published extensively in Egyptology (see Magee, Diana, 'The Egyptological Bibliography of Percy Edward Newberry (1869-1949)', in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Volume 76, 1990) and Botany. Notable publications include several volumes in the series of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt, two volumes in the Catalogue Général of the Cairo Museum and Scarabs (1906).

On 12 February 1907, Newberry married Essie Winifred Johnston (1878-1953). There were no children of the marriage. Although largely undocumented, Newberry was previously married from 1894 to Helena Aders, whom he divorced in 1905.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (4th ed. 2012), 402-3 fig. (portrait).