Mary MacLeod Banks
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Mary MacLeod Banks (2 February 1861 – 22 December 1951) was a folklorist, born Mary MacLeod McConnel in Scotland. She was president of the
Folklore Society The Folklore Society (FLS) is a registered charity under English law based in London, England for the study of folklore. Its office is at 50 Fitzroy Street, London home of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. It wa ...
from 1937 to 1939.


Early life

Mary MacLeod McConnel was born in Edinburgh, the daughter of , a colonist of
Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
, and Mary McConnel.; extracted quote on p. 112. She spent her formative years in Australia, at the family's sheep and cattle station in
Cressbrook Cressbrook is a village in the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire, England. It lies in Water-cum-Jolly Dale at the foot of Cressbrook Dale. Population details at the 2011 Census are included in the civil parish of Litton. Before the ...
, and in Europe. As a young widow, she studied English literature at
Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
.


Career


Research and service

Banks worked with social reformer
Octavia Hill Octavia Hill (3December 183813August 1912) was an English Reform movement, social reformer and founder of the National Trust. Her main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteent ...
as a young woman, She became a long-serving member of the Folklore Society from 1906, later serving on its council and as president from 1937 to 1939. She gave presidential addresses titled "Syncretism in a Symbol" and "Scottish Lore of Earth, its Fruits, and the Plough". In 1947 she received the first Medal for Folk Lore Research from the Society, for her work on Scottish calendar customs. She was also a fellow of the
Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society (RHS), founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the H ...
from 1906, and a member of the
Philological Society The Philological Society, or London Philological Society, is the oldest learned society in Great Britain dedicated to the study of language as well as a registered charity. The current Society was established in 1842 to "investigate and promote ...
. Though based in London, Banks travelled extensively throughout Europe gathering material and researching the many papers she wrote for the society's journal. She maintained contact with the
Pitt Rivers Museum Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed ...
and especially its curator
Henry Balfour Henry Balfour FRS FRAI (11 April 1863 – 9 February 1939) was a British archaeologist, and the first curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum. He was President of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Museums Association, Folklore Society, Royal Geo ...
, who became her close friend. During the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
donated artifacts she had collected during her fieldwork to the Pitt Rivers Museum, including a chamberpot and brass horse ornaments.


Publications

Her published research included ''British Calendar Customs: Scotland'' (1937, 1941) and ''British Calendar Customs: Orkney and Shetland'' (1946). She edited ''An Alphabet of Tales: An English Fifteenth Century Translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum of Etienne de Besançon'' (1904). A personal project was her memoir, ''Memories of Pioneer Days in Queensland'' (1931), in which she acknowledged racial violence in her rural Australian childhood:
It was not until years after my childhood that I learnt of cruelties to the blacks, and I refused at first to believe it possible. This I know, that there were very many places where the natives were treated with kindness, and that much of the harshness was due to ignorance and misunderstanding. But for actual cruelty, which unfortunately cannot be denied, no excuse is possible.


Personal life

Mary MacLeod McConnel married Alfred Banks, an English architect. She was widowed when Banks died on a journey to the United Kingdom. She died in 1951, aged 90 years, in London. Her niece Dorothea McConnel married Australian psychologist
Elton Mayo George Elton Mayo (26 December 1880 – 7 September 1949) was an Australian born psychologist, industrial researcher, and organizational theorist.Cullen, David O'Donald. ''A new way of statecraft: The career of Elton Mayo and the development ...
; another niece was Australian anthropologist
Ursula McConnel Ursula Hope McConnel (1888–1957) was a Queensland anthropologist and ethnographer best remembered for her work with, and the records she made of, the Wik Mungkan people of Cape York Peninsula. First trained at University College London, the ...
.


References


External links


The Online Books Page for Mary MacLeod Banks
John Mark Ockerbloom ed., University of Pennsylvania Libraries. {{DEFAULTSORT:Banks, Mary MacLeod 1861 births 1951 deaths 19th-century Scottish women writers Writers from Edinburgh Scottish folklorists Scottish women folklorists Presidents of the Folklore Society