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Margaret Read (1889-1991) was an early woman social anthropologist. She was a pioneer in applying social anthropology and ethnography to the education and health problems of developing countries. Having studied at Newnham College Cambridge, from 1919 to 1924 she undertook missionary social work in Indian hill villages. From 1924-1930 she lectured on international affairs in Britain and the United States. During the 1930s she studied anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE), did ethnographic field research in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and lectured at LSE. In 1940 Margaret Read was awarded a Chair at the Institute of Education, University of London and became Head of the Department of Education in Tropical Areas, a post which she held until her retirement in 1955. Read was influential in shaping the British Government's attitude to post-war colonial education and was a close personal friend of Sir Christopher Cox at the Colonial Office. After her retirement, she undertook consultancy work, notably for the World Health Organisation and held a number of visiting professorships in Nigeria and the United States.

Margaret Helen Read, 1889-1991, was educated at Roedean and Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1919, she travelled to India, where she was involved in social work in hill villages and developed an interest in social anthropology. After her return to England in 1924, she embarked upon a career lecturing in international affairs in both Britain and America, and entered the London School of Economics to study anthropology in 1930. She studied under Malinowski and was influenced by his theories of functional anthropology. She embarked on ethnographic fieldwork in east central Africa and was appointed as assistant lecturer at LSE in 1937. In 1940 she left the LSE to join the staff at the Colonial Department of the Institute of Education where her main interest was the effect of Western education in Africa. In 1949, Read was appointed as the first Professor of Education 'with special reference to colonial areas' at the Institute of Education. Here she played an important role in shaping post war attitudes in Whitehall towards colonial education policy. She retired in 1955 and was appointed to the University of Nigeria at Ibadan as a Visiting Professor of Education. She became a consultant to the World Health Organisation in 1956, and chairman of the World Health Organisation committee of experts on the training of medical and auxiliary staffs.