Miss Brocklehurst on the Nile
Diary of a Victorian Traveller in Egypt
In 1873 Miss Marianne Brocklehurst arrived in Egypt for a voyage up the Nile (the fashionable winter pastime in the 1870s). She was 40 years old, accompanied by her friend and partner in her photography business, Mary Booth, her trigger-happy nephew Alfred and their resourceful groom George. From the moment they crossed the Channel, she kept a diary of their travels. Money was no problem — she was from one of Macclesfield’s silk mill-owning families and daughter of the town’s MP — so in Cairo they hired a boat and a crew of fifteen and set off to the Second Cataract. [Click to read more]
Their boat was in a flotilla of eager sightseers, among them Miss Amelia Edwards, author of A Thousand Miles up the Nile. As they progressed upriver, they visited temples, picnicked in tombs, dug for antiquities, dinner-partied and bartered [Click to read more]. And shot (Alfred blazed away at anything that moved, from ibis to jackals and once, by mistake, a villager). Marianne also indulged in a spot of smuggling, illicitly sneaking a mummy and an ancient papyrus out of the country [Click to read more]. They formed the basis of what was to become a fine collection at West Park Museum in Macclesfield.
Marianne was also a talented artist. Her diary is full of sketches and watercolours, many of which are reproduced in the book.
The diary was given to Macclesfield Museums by her family and it is thanks to Macclesfield Borough Council that we have been able to publish it for the first time.
| cover | hardback | |
| dimensions | 170x120mm, 144 pp, b&w sketches + 8pp watercolours | |
| price | £14.95 (list) | £13.50 (website) |
| ISBN | 1 902173 147 | |