BORN 1865 • DIED 1919
Young Sir Aubrey was caught pinching a policeman’s helmet in 1898 while at Oxford. He had limited service as a Lieutenant with the Yorkshire Guards, 1901–1902, breveted as a Colonel in British Army Intelligence, 1915–1916, and then retired due to injury.
Sir Aubrey graduated with honors in Classics from Oxford but spent the next several years in Egypt, surveying and performing exploratory excavations amid the then-little-known wonders upriver, to the First Cataract and beyond.
As his official biography noted, Sir Aubrey was credited with founding several important branches of Egyptology and for several important archaeological discoveries, particularly at Dahshur.
Nearly as important, the Penhew Foundation in England, set up by Sir Aubrey, had underwritten many influential research projects at home and abroad and was responsible for the education of many brilliant but penniless scholars.
With the inevitable nimbus of black sheep and blackguards down through the centuries, the Penhews traced their nobility to the time of William the Conqueror, when Sir Boris Penhew acquired great holdings in the west of England. With the exception of one Sir Blaize, who was beheaded for treason and black magic (his crimes nearly cost the line its titles and properties), the Penhew prosperity and prestige had been undiminished for eight centuries.
Sir Aubrey had title to several famous stately homes, as well as mansions in London, the Cotswolds, Monaco, and Alexandria (Egypt), and townhouses in Paris, Rome, and Athens. He was incontestably wealthy and reputedly made new fortunes from his American holding companies during the Great War.
Though a public figure, Sir Aubrey’s private life was little known. He was a bachelor, without family or heirs other than the Penhew Foundation. His Egyptologist peers held him in high regard.
The Friends of Prospero
Peru: Episode VIII • Peru: Episode VII • Peru: Episode VI • Peru: Episode V • Peru: Episode IV • Peru: Episode III • Peru: Episode II • Peru: Episode I
The Two-Headed Serpent
Coming soon…
