Margaret Read

Margaret Helen Read, CBE (5 August 1889 – 19 May 1991) was a British social anthropologist and academic, who specialised in colonial education. She was one of the first researchers to apply social anthropology and ethnography principles to the education and health problems of people living in the British colonies.

Life and work Read was born on 5 August 1889 in Battersea Rise, London, England, to Mabyn Read, a medical doctor, and Isabel Lawford.

Until 1930, Read also took on lecturing opportunities in Britain and the United States on subjects related to international affairs. In the 1930s, Read attended the London School of Economics (LSE), to study anthropology which included ethnographic field research in Africa, including Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi).

From 1937 to 1940, Read was an assistant lecturer at LSE.

In 1949, Read was awarded a chair as Professor of Education "with special reference to colonial areas". Read was influential in shaping the British Government's attitude to post-war colonial education. After retiring in 1955, she became a consultant, notably for the World Health Organisation (WHO), and also became a visiting professor in Nigeria and the United States. The collection contains travel diaries from the 1940s onwards, photographs, drafts of writing, and correspondence.