5 days ago
Margret Carey obituary
My mother, Margret Carey, who has died aged 95, had a successful career as an ethnographer and bead expert, including being the first permanent female staff member of the British Museum's ethnography department, when she was appointed assistant keeper in 1954.
Margret had a particular interest in the beadwork of sub-Saharan Africa, and wrote two books and several articles related to those subjects and the region. She also spoke at numerous international bead conferences.
Born in Dublin, to Constance (nee Haythornthwaite) and Thomas Bennet-Clark, a botany professor then teaching at Trinity College, Margret was deaf from birth. However, her mother ensured she could lip-read with sufficient skill to attend mainstream schools while moving for her father's academic posts, including Broadgate high school, Nottingham, then Guildford high school for sixth form.
In 1950 she gained a degree in ancient history from University College London, followed by a diploma from the Institute of Archaeology, and began working on digs before being hired by the British Museum.
In 1953, while Margret was working as director of excavations at a Roman house in Winchester, the Hampshire Chronicle ran a piece with the headline, 'Led by a girl'. It continued: 'A toiling team of archaeologists … are uncovering the ruined remains of a Roman building. They are led by a woman, Miss Margaret [sic] Bennet-Clark, who is dark, slim and 24, [and] wears corduroys and sweaters as she supervises the three-month task which is nearly completed.'
Margret married Michael Carey, a solicitor, in 1958, and they settled in Dulwich, south London. Three years later, on the birth of her first child, she resigned from her staff position at the British Museum. However, she continued to work as a consultant, including for her former employer, contributing to the Encyclopedia Britannica on African Art, and writing Myths & Legends of Africa (1970).
From 1972 to the early 1980s she carried out fieldwork among the Bemba people in Zambia, culminating in a 1983 exhibition of their material culture at the Museum of Mankind in central London, which then housed the British Museum's ethnography collection.
Margret was one of the founding members of the Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG), which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. One member recalled: 'On one of my first MEG trips she immediately noticed my glass bead and fish vertebrae necklace from Gambia even before introducing herself.'
She published Beads and Beadwork of East and South Africa (1986) followed by another book on the beadwork of West and Central Africa (1991), and lectured at bead conferences internationally, including Washington DC (1995), New Mexico (2000 and 2002) and Istanbul (2007). A founder trustee of the Bead Study Trust, Margret was also a long-time member and supporter of the Society of Bead Researchers and the Bead Society of Great Britain.
In later life she volunteered at the Horniman Museum in south London, and enjoyed many other pursuits including reading, dressmaking, knitting and crafts.
Michael died in 2020. She is survived by two daughters, Emily and me, and four grandchildren, Charlie, Edmund, Eva and Bobby.
