Mary Gluckman

Mary Gluckman (1917–1990) was a British linguist, adult educator, and political activist, in particular opposing British colonialism in Africa. She was the wife of Professor Max Gluckman at Manchester University and worked at her husband's side for many years.

Early life She was born in Rome in 1917, and as a result grew up bilingual in Italian and English. Her father, an Italian architect, died before Mary was born; her mother, an English actress resident in Rome, died when Mary was two years old. As a result, she was brought up by relatives of her mother, a well-to-do family. Mary attended a girl's boarding school, Wycombe Abbey, before going on to study languages at Oxford University. But on New Year's Eve, 1938 she met her future husband Max while on a skiing holiday in the French Alps. After they married, she dropped out of Oxford and travelled to Southern Africa to help him with his field work among the Zulu and later the Barotse.

Life in Africa

The Gluckman's first son, John, was born on March 12, 1943, in Cape Town. Some of the conflicts of family life and being the wife of a social anthropologist are shown in Lyn Schumaker's account which states that Mary became involved in the work of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. (RLI).