Born in 1916 in
Sydney, Australia, Collingridge Wheeler went to England to be educated. Several other notable women archaeologists took part in this excavation, including
Veronica Seton-Williams,
Joan du Plat Taylor,
Leslie Scott,
Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop, and
Margot Eates. Collingridge Wheeler joined Wheeler's excavation at Camp d'Artus near
Huelgoat,
Finistère,
Brittany in 1938 and subsequent explorations in
Normandy in 1939. Wheeler's biographer
Jacquetta Hawkes noted that Wheeler had developed romantic feelings for Collingridge Wheeler by this stage, although he married
Mavis de Vere Cole in 1939, three years after the death of his first wife Tessa. Collingridge Wheeler worked on the excavation of the tombs of Tsambres and Aphendrika at Agios Philion in
Cyprus in 1938. Collingridge Wheeler joined the
ATS during the Second World War and learned range-finding. She met a childhood friend, Robert Norfolk, a submarine commander, whom she married. In 1941, Norfolk's submarine
HMS Thorn went down in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1945 she married Sir
Mortimer Wheeler when Wheeler was Director-General of Archaeology in India. She travelled extensively with Wheeler to sites in India, Iran and Afghanistan. In 1954, Collingridge Wheeler joined Dame
Kathleen Kenyon's excavations at Jericho. Her book
Walls of Jericho (1956) describes the excavation and personnel. In the 1960s Collingridge Wheeler joined Kenyon's excavations at
Jerusalem. Collingridge Wheeler was a devout Roman Catholic, and although separated from Wheeler in 1956, they never divorced. He died in 1976. Collingridge Wheeler died in 1990. ==Selected publications (as Margaret Wheeler)==