From 1895 to 1914, amateur Egyptologist and RDS Member Lawrence E. Steele made 4 trips to Egypt, where he visited archaeological digs, ancient temple complexes and the Cairo museum. On his return Steele lectured around Ireland on Egyptology, utilising the photographs he took, and the glass lantern slides he purchased on his travels. The record of his visits, including 1,500 glass lantern slides, several diaries and notebooks and an album of press-cuttings of reviews of Steele’s lectures were left to the RDS collections in 1946.

From 2024-2025 the RDS Library & Archives were fortunate to receive funding from a private donor and from the Heritage Council Community Heritage Grant Scheme to digitise this collection. It is now complete and available to view on the RDS Digital Archive.

In this episode of Bearing Fruit: Tales from the RDS Archives, Foundation Director Niamh de Loughry talk about Steele’s life and legacy and explore the broader RDS digital collections.

View the RDS Digital Collections here: https://digitalarchive.rds.ie/