- published: 02 Oct 2010
- views: 8033
Sir Edmund Ronald Leach (7 November 1910 – 6 January 1989) was a British social anthropologist of whom it has been said:
"It is no exaggeration to say that in sheer versatility, originality, and range of writing he was and still is difficult to match among the anthropologists of the English speaking world".
He was provost of King's College, Cambridge from 1966–1979, was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1972 and knighted in 1975. He introduced Claude Lévi-Strauss into British social anthropology.
He was born in Sidmouth, Devon, the youngest of three children and the son of William Edmund Leach and Mildred Brierley. His father owned and was manager of a sugar plantation in northern Argentina. Leach was educated at Marlborough and Clare College, Cambridge where he graduated with honours in Engineering in 1932.
In 1940 Leach married Celia Joyce who was a talented painter and also published two novels. They had a daughter in 1941 and a son in 1946.
After leaving Cambridge University Leach took a four-year contract in 1933 with Butterfield and Swire in China. He found out after his contract expired that he did not like the business atmosphere and never again was going to sit on an office stool. On his way home he stopped and spent some time among the Yami of Botel Tobago, an island off the coast of Formosa. Here he took ethnographic notes and made drawings of the Yami.