Green, Margaret Mackeson

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0102 PP MS 15
Held at	: School of Oriental and African Studies   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.soas.ac.uk/Archives/home.html ›
Full title	: Green, Margaret Mackeson
Date(s)	: Created 1937-1987
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 29 boxes
Name of creator(s)	: Green | Margaret Mackeson | 1895-1979 | anthropologist and linguist

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Margaret Mackeson Green was born in Eltham, Kent, on 14 July 1895. Although the First World War interrupted her studies, she gained a double first in history at Cambridge. She then went to Nigeria with a friend, where her interest in and love of Africa began. During this first visit, she helped to establish the first school in Kano.

She returned to Cambridge to read anthropology and was awarded a Leverhulme Grant to research the lives of Ibo women, among whom she lived for several years. She assisted with the production of the first published grammar of the Igbo language. Two of her own anthropological works were also published: Land Tenure in an Ibo Village (1941) and Ibo Village Affairs (1947). She was appointed Lecturer and Reader in West African Languages and Cultures at the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1939-1951.

Margaret Mackeson Green played an active role in seeking to alleviate the suffering of refugees during the Nigerian Civil War, and took a keen interest in the work of the Division of Inter-Church Aid Refugee World Service (DICARWS) of the World Council of Churches (WCC). She never married, and died in March 1979.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers, 1937-1987, of and relating to Margaret Mackeson Green, comprising personal correspondence (1946-1973); Igbo material, including her original field notes and work on the Igbo language, preparatory drafts of the Igbo Language Course, notes on Igbo texts, vocabulary lists intended for inclusion in an Igbo/English dictionary, and a few miscellaneous items of anthropological significance; material relating to the Division of Inter-Church Aid Refugee World Service (DICARWS) (1968-1969); and miscellaneous material on other African languages.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English and Igbo

System of arrangement:

The collection has been arranged into three sections: personal correspondence; Igbo material; other (non-Igbo) material.

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted.

Conditions governing reproduction:

No publication without written permission. Apply to archivist in the first instance.

Finding aids:

Unpublished handlist.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Donated in 1979.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Anthropological papers of Margaret Mackeson Green are held at Cambridge University Library, Manuscripts Department, West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DR.

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:

Date(s) of descriptions:
15 May 2000