British archaeologist who led the Mary Rose project
Margaret Rule
Born
Margaret Helen Martin
27 September 1928
Buckinghamshire
Died
9 April 2015(2015-04-09) (aged 86)
Alma mater
University of London
Scientific career
Fields
maritime archaeology
Margaret Helen Rule, CBE (27 September 1928 – 9 April 2015) was a British archaeologist.[1] She led the project that excavated and raised the Tudor warship Mary Rose in 1982.[2][3][4]
Rule, née Martin, was born in Buckinghamshire on 27 September 1928. She studied chemistry at the University of London.[5]
Career[]
She was the curator of the Fishbourne Roman Palace, when she began her work in maritime archaeology when she was consulted on the initial search for the wreck of Mary Rose.
In March 1982 Margaret Rule visited Adelaide, South Australia, as the keynote speaker to the Second Southern Hemisphere Conference on Maritime Archaeology. During the Conference she visited the historic Murray River port of Morgan and dived with members of the Society for Underwater Historical Research (SUHR) on a project to record and recover items from the riverbed alongside the town's massive wharf.[6][7]
Later life[]
Rule had been living with Parkinson's disease and arthritis in her later years.[8] She died on 9 April 2015, aged 86.[9]
Obituaries[]
British Sub Aqua Club – 'Tributes paid to Dr Margaret Rule, lead archaeologist of the Mary Rose' Monday 13 April 2015
Isabel Berwick, Financial Times – 'Margaret Rule, archaeologist, 1928–2015' Friday 17 April 2015
Peter Marsden, The Guardian – 'Archaeologist responsible for raising the wreck of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's flagship, from the seabed' Thursday 16 April 2015
Matthew Bannister, Last Word, BBC Radio 4 – 'Margaret Rule was the archaeologist who supervised the raising of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose from the seabed under the waters of the Solent' Friday 24 April 2015
Rosemary E Lunn, X-Ray Magazine – 'Margaret Rule 1928 – 2015' Friday 29 April 2015
Honours[]
She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1995, the National Maritime Museum awarded her its Caird Medal. In 2001 the University of Portsmouth named a new 342 bed student accommodation block Margaret Rule Hall after her. In 2008, she was awarded the Colin Mcleod Award for "Furthering international co-operation in diving" by the British Sub Aqua Club.[10]
Bibliography[]
Down, Alec; Rule, Margaret (1971). Chichester Excavations. Chichester, West Sussex: Chichester Civic Society Excavations Committee. ISBN0950143804.
Rule, Margaret (1974). Floor Mosaics in Roman Britain. London: Macmillan / Sussex Archaeological Trust. ISBN0333148282.
Rule, Margaret (1977). Fishbourne Roman Palace. Sussex: Sussex Archaeological Society.
Rule, Margaret (1982). The Mary Rose: the Excavation and Raising of Henry VIII's Flagship. Leicester: Windward. ISBN0711203164.
Rule, Margaret; Monaghan, Jason (1993). A Gallo-Roman Trading Vessel from Guernsey: The Excavation and Recovery of a Third Century Shipwreck. Guernsey: Guernsey Museums & Galleries. ISBN1871560039.
Contributor to: May, Eric; Jones, Mark, eds. (2006). Conservation Science: Heritage Materials. Cambridge, UK: RSC Publishing. ISBN0854046593.
^Eaton, B (7 October 1982). "HMS Mary Rose – A Tudor treasure trove". New Scientist. 96: 8–11.
^Worman, Robin (5 October 2007). "Mary Rose memories". BBC Hampshire. Retrieved 30 May 2013.
^"Margaret Rule". The Times. 17 April 2015. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
^Marfleet, Brian, (2006), The Morgan Project: Volume 1 – Progress, Newsletter & Annual Reports (1977–1983), Port Adelaide, SA, Society for Underwater Historical Research, (ISBN0 9588006 3 4), pp. 92 & 107. [1]
^Marfleet, Brian, (2006), The Morgan Project: Volume 2 – The Final Report (1989), Port Adelaide, SA, Society for Underwater Historical Research, (ISBN0 9588006 4 2), pp.32, 42, 45 & 52.[2]