Introduction

Margery Perham was probably the best known figure in the study of British colonial administration in Africa from the 1930s until its ending in the 1960s. She died in 1982 at the age of 86, and her substantial collection of papers was left to Rhodes House Library, Oxford. In July 1989 a seminar was held at Rhodes House to celebrate the completion of the cataloguing of the seven hundred boxes of these papers by Patricia Pugh, and to assemble, as a help towards a biography, some of those who had known Margery Perham as colleagues, assistants and friends. This volume is based on a selection of the papers given at that seminar. The authors include those who, not having known Margery Perham, approached their topic simply as academic historians; those who mixed historical analysis with personal reminiscence; and those whose recollections have added material which would not be available elsewhere. The complete set of seminar papers, covering a larger variety of subjects, together with the taped record of the four sessions, and a summary of the discussions, have been deposited in Rhodes House Library.