Margery Perham

Dame Margery Freda Perham (6 September 1895 – 19 February 1982) was a British historian of, and writer on, African affairs. She was known especially for the intellectual force of her arguments in favour of British decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Life and career

She was born in Bury, Lancashire, and educated at the School of S. Anne, Abbots Bromley and St Hugh's College, Oxford. After completing her Oxford degree, she became an assistant lecturer in history at the University of Sheffield in 1917. In 1922, as a result of illness, she took a year’s leave, which she spent in Somaliland with her sister’s family, beginning her lifelong interest in the British African colonies. In 1932 she was awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship for travel and study in East Africa and the Sudan. At the same time, the book was criticized by anti-colonial activists, such as C. L. R. James and George Padmore.

She was appointed CBE in 1948 and DCMG in 1965. She received honorary degrees from several universities, and was made an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford, in 1962.