Major General Richard William Howard Vyse (25 July 1784 – 8 June 1853) was a British soldier and expert in Egypt's history. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Beverley from 1807 to 1812 and for Honiton from 1812 to 1818.

Family life

Richard William Howard Vyse was born on July 25, 1784, in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. He was the only son of General Richard Vyse and Anne, who was the only surviving daughter and heiress of Field-Marshal Sir George Howard. In September 1812, Vyse added the name Howard to his name with permission from the king. He later became known as Richard William Howard Howard Vyse after inheriting estates in Boughton and Pitsford, Northamptonshire, from his grandmother, Lucy. Lucy was the daughter of Thomas Wentworth, the 1st Earl of Strafford.

Vyse married Frances on November 13, 1810. Frances was the second daughter of Henry Hesketh from Newton, Cheshire. Together, they had eight sons and two daughters. Two of their children were Lt. Frederick Howard Vyse RN and Richard Howard-Vyse, who later became a member of Parliament in Windsor. Vyse died on June 8, 1853, in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. His will was officially recorded on August 13, 1853, at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.

Military career

Vyse joined the British Army in 1800 and was appointed as a cornet in the 1st Dragoons on May 5. On June 17 of the following year, he moved to the 15th Light Dragoons and was promoted to lieutenant. He remained in the 15th Light Dragoons and was promoted to captain on June 24, 1802. In this role, he served as an aide-de-camp to his father in 1809, when his father commanded the Yorkshire Military District. Vyse was then appointed as a brevet major on June 4, 1813. In 1815, he changed regiments again and became a captain in the 87th Regiment of Foot on August 31. He later joined the 2nd Life Guards in the same rank on July 5, 1816, and was promoted to substantive major on January 4, 1819, while serving in the 1st West India Regiment.

Vyse purchased a majority back into the 2nd Life Guards a month later, on February 4, and was made a brevet lieutenant-colonel on May 13, 1820. He served as an equerry to Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, during this time. On September 10, 1825, he purchased a substantive lieutenant-colonelcy, which was not tied to any specific regiment. From this point, Vyse served on half pay, meaning he received reduced pay while not actively serving. He was later promoted to colonel on January 10, 1837, and to major-general on November 9, 1846.

Parliamentary career

Vyse was chosen to serve in Parliament for Beverley in Yorkshire, a town where elections often had many candidates running, in 1807. Two months after the election, Philip Staple, the candidate who lost, asked Parliament to review the results. He claimed Vyse (and the other winning candidate, John Wharton) had used bribery and corruption during the campaign. A special group of officials called a Select Committee looked into the petition but decided not to change the election results in Staple’s favor. About sixteen years after Vyse’s death, proof was found that many of his voters had been given money: £3.8s for a plumper and £1.14s for a split vote. Payments made after an election (as these were) were not considered illegal under the 1729 Bribery Act (and related court decisions) and were not seen as reasons to cancel an election by Parliamentary Select Committees.

In October 1812, Vyse traded his position in Beverley for a new seat in Honiton, Devonshire. This time, Vyse was elected without any competition because the possible third candidate, Samuel Colleton Graves of Hembury Fort near Honiton, decided not to run in that area. Vyse kept this seat until Parliament was dissolved in 1818.

He also served as High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1830.

Egyptologist

Vyse first visited Egypt in 1835 and joined the excavations at Giza in 1836, working with Giovanni Battista Caviglia. Vyse found Caviglia's work unproductive and in 1837 partnered with engineer John Shae Perring to explore and document the pyramids. Their efforts resulted in the publication of The Pyramids of Gizeh and The Operations Carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh, which included an appendix of Vyse's account of traveling to Lower Egypt.

Vyse used gunpowder to explore the Great Pyramid of Giza, leading to a significant discovery. Giovanni Battista Caviglia had previously used explosives on the south side of the stress-relieving chamber (Davison's Chamber), located above the King's Chamber, to search for a connection to the southern air channel. However, Caviglia stopped his work. Vyse noticed a crack that allowed a reed to be inserted about two feet upward into a cavity, suggesting another chamber might exist above Davison's Chamber. Over three and a half months, Vyse used explosives on the northern side and discovered four additional chambers. He named these chambers after important friends and colleagues.

Vyse's account of discovering Wellington's Chamber was disputed by Caviglia in a series of letters. Caviglia claimed he had shared his suspicion that another chamber existed above Davison's Chamber with Vyse and accused Vyse of revealing this information without permission, leading to Caviglia's removal from the Giza site. Vyse strongly denied these claims.

Vyse also found graffiti in the chambers dating back to when the pyramids were built. These included lines, markers, and directional notations, as well as names of work gangs responsible for cutting and moving stone blocks. Most of these names included variations of the pharaoh's name, such as Khufu, Khnum-Khuf, and Medjedu, with the first two appearing in royal cartouches. While most of these names were found in Lady Arbuthnot's and Campbell's Chambers, all four chambers Vyse explored contained graffiti, which Vyse referred to as "quarry-marks." Davison's Chamber, however, had no such markings.

A famous example of Pharaoh Khufu's name is located on the south ceiling of Campbell's Chamber, near the west end. The inscription reads "the gang, Companions of Khufu," indicating one of the work gangs involved in building the chamber. Though the cartouche of Khufu is partially obscured, the same gang name appears on another ceiling block. Vyse also recorded a partial cartouche on the north side of the chamber. Vyse had his assistant, J. R. Hill, copy the graffiti and send it to Samuel Birch, the Keeper of Antiquities at the British Museum, who could translate Egyptian hieroglyphs. Birch identified the cartouche as belonging to Suphis/Cheops, confirming Khufu's connection to the Great Pyramid, a link previously only mentioned by the ancient historian Herodotus.

Additional compound cartouches of the royal name "Khnum-Khufu" were found in Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber, with more examples in Nelson's and Wellington's Chambers.

Today, these chambers also contain graffiti from the 19th and 20th centuries, with much of it concentrated in Campbell's Chamber, including markings by Sister M. T. Martin.