Intermediate resolution spectroscopy from the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope is analysed for 63 photometrically selected low-mass (0.08-0.30M_{sun}_) candidates of the open cluster NGC 2547. We have confirmed membership for most of these stars using radial velocities, and found that lithium remains undepleted for cluster stars with I>17.54+/-0.14 and Ks>14.86+/-0.12. From these results, several pre-main-sequence evolutionary models give almost model independent ages of 34-36Myr, with a precision of 10%. These ages are only slightly larger than the ages of 25-35(+/-5)Myr obtained using the same models to fit isochrones to higher mass stars descending towards the zero-age main-sequence, both in empirically calibrated and theoretical colour-magnitude diagrams. This agreement between age determinations in different mass ranges is an excellent test of the current generation of low-mass pre-main-sequence stellar models and lends confidence to ages determined with either method between 30 and 120Myr.