Margaret Murray 1863 – 1963

Margaret Murray

’I have been an archaeologist most of my life and now I’m a piece of archaeology myself.’

Margaret Alice Murray was an English Archaeologist and Folklorist.  She was the first female lecturer of archaeology in the United Kingdom, when she worked at University College London (UCL) from 1898 to 1935.  She was also widely published over the course of her career and was president of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955.

            Born in Calcutta, Margaret divided her younger years between Britain and India and originally trained as a nurse and social worker.  She began studying Egyptology at UCL in 1894 and was appointed as Junior Professor in 1898.  She established her reputation in Egyptology in 1902-03, when she was part of an excavation expedition in Abydos, Egypt, where they discovered the Osireion Tempe and Saqqara Cemetery. 

            In 1908, she became the first woman to publicly unwrap a mummy during a lecture at Manchester Museum.  She also began to write books about Egyptology for a more public audience.  When the First World War stopped her from returning to Egypt, Margaret Murray changed the focus of her research to the Witch-Cult Hypothesis.  Her theory that the early witch-trials of modern Christianity were trying to extinguish the pagan religion were academically discredited, although they did have a big impact on the Wicca Religion. 

            Murray’s first book about witchcraft: The Witch Cult in Western Europe, was published in 1921, after she had conducted numerous field studies throughout Europe, with theories of how witchcraft and Pagan fertility cults extended back to the Palaeolithic era.  She managed to cause a lot of controversy amongst her peers who ridiculed her opinions.  This did not however deter her from continuing to study witchcraft as a sideline to her main career.

            Margaret Murray developed an interest in folkloristics when she undertook excavations of prehistoric sites on Malta and Minorca between 1921 - 1931.  She was appointed assistant professor in 1928 and awarded an honourary doctorate in 1927, before retiring in 1935.

            Although she has been widely acclaimed for her work in Egyptology, Margaret Murray’s work in folkloristics and the history of witchcraft has been largely discredited, leaving her with a tarnished reputation.  Her books on witchcraft are often still ridiculed today as having very little historic importance. 

            Margaret Murray died in 1963 at the age of one-hundred.  She will mostly be remembered for her academic contributions to the science of Archaeology and Egyptology, but it would be difficult to ignore the contributions she made to the early development of contemporary witchcraft.  She will no doubt be remembered as one of the most remarkable women of her generation.