William John Bankes ( 1786 - 1855 )

Birth: 11 December 1786 Death: Venice, Venezia province, Veneto, Italy, Europe (15 April 1855) Burial: Wimborne Minster, Dorset England, United Kingdom Profession: Politician; archaeologist; explorer; collector Research field: Archaeology; Egyptology; antiquities Education: Westminster School (1795); Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1808, MA 1811) Career: Tory MP (for Truro 1810, for Cambridge University 1822- 1826, for Marlborough 1829-1832, for Dorset 1832-1835); lived a bohemian life with gypsies in Spain and Portugal (1812); travelled widely in the Middle East and Africa, especially Egypt, Nubia and the Nile collecting antiquities, accompanied by artists who documented ancient monuments and inscriptions (1812-1819); published account of his explorations as 'Travels in the East'; engaged Louis Linant de Bellefonds to search for the ancient city of Meroe (accomplished 1821-1822); contributed to deciphering the Rosetta Stone by suggesting that the texts on the stone might all say the same thing in different languages, and correctly supposed that a recurring cartouche represented a royal name; forced to flee England following his second arrest for having gay sex, which was illegal in the UK at the time and would likely have resulted in his execution (1841); living in France and later Italy continued to collect ancient and modern art and artefacts which he sent home to his house Kingston Lacy in Dorset; died in exile in Venice (1855) Membership: Fellow Election Date: 28/03/1822 Ejected: 1842 following arrest for homosexual activity with a guardsman on a bench in St James's Park, London.