Monica Hunter Wilson died on 26 October 1982. Born of missionary parents at Lovedale, Eastern Cape Province, she studied history and anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge. She had early connections with the International African Institute, being one of the distinguished group of scholars whose African fieldwork was sponsored by the Institute in the 1930s (others included Meyer Fortes, Hilda Kuper, S. F. Nadel, Margaret Read and Godfrey Wilson). Her first fieldwork, among the Pondo of South Africa, took place 1931 to 1933; the other major fieldwork, among the Nyakyusa of south-west Tanzania, was done 1935 to 1938, with a re-visit in 1955. In 1935 she married Godfrey Wilson, with whom she collaborated on field studies and publications, until his death while serving in the army, in 1944