{{Short description|British folklorist and writer (1861–1951)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2017}} {{Use British English|date=October 2017}} {{Infobox person | name = Mary MacLeod Banks | other_names = M. M. Banks | birth_name = Mary MacLeod McConnel | birth_date = {{birth date|1861|02|02|df=yes}} | birth_place = Edinburgh | death_date = {{death date and age|1951|12|22|1861|02|02|df=yes}} | death_place = England | occupation = Folklorist, writer }}
'''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 from 1937 to 1939.
== Early life == Mary MacLeod McConnel was born in Edinburgh, the daughter of {{ill|David Cannon McConnel|qid=Q21536696}}, a colonist of Queensland, and Mary McConnel.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=Dawson |first=Barbara |chapter=Mary McConnel: Christianising the Aborigines? |date=2014 |title=In the Eye of the Beholder |pages=99–124 |series=What Six Nineteenth-century Women Tell Us About Indigenous Authority and Identity |publisher=ANU Press |jstor=j.ctt13wwvt9.13 |isbn=978-1-925021-97-4}}; extracted quote on p. 112.</ref> She spent her formative years in Australia, at the family's sheep and cattle station in Cressbrook,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/97132073?searchTerm=%22Mary%20Macleod%20Banks%22&searchLimits= |title=Hereford Prestige is High; McConnel History; Early Prejudices Overcome |date=6 July 1950 |work=Queensland Country Life |access-date=7 March 2020 |page=9|via=Trove}}</ref> and in Europe.<ref name="Petch">{{cite web |url=http://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-Mary-MacLeod-Banks.html |title=Mary MacLeod Banks |last=Petch |first=Alison |work=England: the other within |publisher=Pitt Rivers Museum |access-date=11 January 2011}}</ref> As a young widow, she studied English literature at Oxford.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19099182?searchTerm=%22Mary%20Macleod%20Banks%22&searchLimits= |title=Personal |date=21 January 1901 |work=The Brisbane Courier |access-date=7 March 2020 |pages=5 |via=Trove}}</ref>
== Career ==
=== Research and service === Banks worked with social reformer Octavia Hill 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".<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last=L |first=E. F. C. |date=1952-01-01 |title=Obituary Mary Macleod Banks |journal=Folklore |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=42–43 |doi=10.1080/0015587X.1952.9718095 |issn=0015-587X}}</ref> 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 from 1906, and a member of the Philological Society.<ref name="Petch" />
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 and especially its curator Henry Balfour, who became her close friend.<ref>Banks, Mary M. (March 1939). "Obituary Notice: Henry Balfour" ''Folklore'' '''50''' (1): 111-112</ref> During the Second World War donated artifacts she had collected during her fieldwork to the Pitt Rivers Museum, including a chamberpot and brass horse ornaments.<ref name="Petch" />
=== Publications === Her published research included ''British Calendar Customs: Scotland'' (1937, 1941)<ref>{{cite book |last=Banks |first=Mary Macleod |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LUosAQAAIAAJ |title=British Calendar Customs: Scotland |date=1941 |publisher=Pub. for the Folk-lore society, W. Glaisher Limited |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37066273?searchTerm=%22Mary%20Macleod%20Banks%22&searchLimits= |title=British Calendar Customs |date=7 August 1937 |work=The Courier-Mail |access-date=7 March 2020 |page=18 |via=Trove}}</ref> and ''British Calendar Customs: Orkney and Shetland'' (1946).<ref>{{cite book |last=Banks |first=Mary Macleod |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3p3WAAAAMAAJ |title=British Calendar Customs: Orkney & Shetland |date=1946 |publisher=Pub. for the Folk-Lore Society, W. Glaisher |language=en}}</ref> She edited Arnoldus Leodiensis's ''An Alphabet of Tales: An English Fifteenth Century Translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum of Etienne de Besançon'' (1904).<ref>{{cite book |last=BANKS |first=Mary Macleod |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oiwmzAEACAAJ |title=An Alphabet of Tales: an English 15th Century Translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum of Etienne de Besançon, from Additional MS. 25719 of the British Museum |date=1904 |publisher=for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner |language=en}}</ref> A personal project was her memoir,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/21767544?searchTerm=%22Mary%20Macleod%20Banks%22&searchLimits= |title=Books of the Week: McConnel of Cressbrook |date=5 December 1931 |work=The Brisbane Courier |access-date=7 March 2020 |page=20 |via=Trove}}</ref> ''Memories of Pioneer Days in Queensland'' (1931),<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Banks |first=Mary Macleod |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/387027 |title=Memories of pioneer days in Queensland |date=1931 |publisher=Cranton |location=London}}</ref> in which she acknowledged racial violence in her rural Australian childhood: <blockquote>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.<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>
== 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.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/50222807?searchTerm=%22Alfred%20Banks%22%20McConnel&searchLimits= |title=Deaths |date=31 December 1951 |work=The Courier-Mail |access-date=7 March 2020 |page=8 |via=Trove}}</ref> Her niece Dorothea McConnel married Australian psychologist Elton Mayo; another niece was Australian anthropologist Ursula McConnel.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WvIUCvCJa_AC&dq=Mary%20Macleod%20McConnel&pg=PA421 |title=The Makers and Making Of Indigenous Australian Museum Collections |date=2008-08-16 |publisher=Melbourne Univ. Publishing |isbn=978-0-522-85989-8 |pages=421 |language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == {{wikisource|works=or}} * [https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Banks%2C%20Mary%20Macleod The Online Books Page for Mary MacLeod Banks], John Mark Ockerbloom ed., University of Pennsylvania Libraries. {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banks, Mary MacLeod}} Category:1861 births Category:1951 deaths Category:19th-century Scottish women writers Category:Writers from Edinburgh Category:Scottish folklorists Category:Scottish women folklorists Category:Presidents of the Folklore Society