Background
Rosemary Firth (née Upcott) was born in 1912. Her father was a distinguished official in the Treasury.
Rosemary Firth (née Upcott) was born in 1912. Her father was a distinguished official in the Treasury.
University of Edinburgh.
She specialised in the field of domestic economy. She took a Political Economy degree (Master of Arts) in Edinburgh in 1935, and then moved to London. She focussed on the domestic economy of the female villagers, resulting in the publication of Housekeeping among Malay Peasants in 1943.
She worked as a lecturer in health education at the University of London Institute of Education for many years, whilst continuing her anthropological research interests.
Her son Hugh was born in 1946. She died in 2001. Following her death, Sir Raymond established The Rosemary and Raymond Firth Award in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics.
This award has the specific aim of promoting Rosemary’s interest in "the anthropology of household management and the organisation of domestic affairs".