Eliza Bodington

In 1913 Eliza Bodington gave her late husband's Cypriot antiquities to the University of Leeds and to the museum of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. Born Eliza Barran (1853-1941), she was the daughter of Sir John Barran, a Leeds clothing manufacturer, mayor and MP¹. She and Nathan Bodington, first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, met on holiday in Spain in 1907 and married that year, when she was 52 and he 59¹. He died in May 1911 on the way back from North Africa¹.

She marked his memory with a brass tablet at Kenilworth parish church, a portrait for the University and, in October 1913, a gift to the Classical Department of Cypriot antiquities found among his stored possessions in the University cellar¹. A. M. Woodward catalogued the material given to the University¹. She also gave the Society's museum "an interesting selection of objects collected by the late Sir Nathan Bodington in Cyprus": glass vessels, terracotta figures, an amphora, unguentaria, a red earthenware bowl, bronze mirrors and knucklebones¹. Identified pieces now in Leeds include a bronze mirror (LEEDM.D.1964.0388), a Bichrome amphora (.0359) and a Black on Red flask (.0362); no glass survives¹. The date and circumstances of Nathan's visit to Cyprus are not known, and Reeve suggests that Eliza, married only four years, may not have known the collection's history¹.