Artefacts of Excavation

British collector; he was born in Liverpool, 16 May 1848, son of Walter Fergus M. and Anne Jane Moon; he was educated Exeter College, Oxford; BA, 1871; MA, 1874; vicar of Tamworth, Staffs., 1878-87; he was a leading social reformer in Tamworth, and patron of many of the town’s institutions; he served on the Committee of the EEF, 1888-1930; FSA, 1908; he formed one of the most remarkable collections of Egyptian antiquities ever made by a private individual, which was kept in his house, Bolehall Manor, Tamworth; the ceramic section was described by Henry Wallis, Egyptian Ceramic Art, 1898; he subscribed funds for many excavations in Egypt and Nubia and was with Naville at Bubastis, 1889-91; his collection was sold over nine days at Sotheby’s, 26 June-6 July 1922 (1800 lots, cat. with 53 plates); the sale fetched over £34,000, the top lot, an obsidian head of a king, being purchased for £10,000 by Gulbenkian; Wellcome purchased nearly a quarter of the lots; MacGregor bequeathed some minor pieces to the Ashmolean Museum, and a stela remains built into the walls at Bolehall Manor; he died in Tamworth, 26 Feb. 1937.