Dr. R. R. Marett, F.B.A

Abstract

ON November 20, the University of Oxford conferred the honorary degree of D.Litt. upon Dr. Robert Ranulph Marett, rector of Exeter College, Oxford, in recognition of his services to the study of anthropology. Dr. Marett has been closely identified with Oxford for the greater part of his life, first as senior exhibitioner of Balliol College, then as fellow, sub-rector and tutor of Exeter College, of which he became rector in succession to the late Dr. L. R. Farnell in 1928. Dr. Marett has held a distinguished position in academic circles as a philosopher since the days when he crowned his career as an undergraduate by winning the Green Essay Prize in Moral Philosophy, after being awarded the Chancellor's Prize for Latin verse ; but to the outside world he is best known as an anthropologist, the formulator of the theory of preanimism in the study of primitive religion, the author of a number of books and contributions to scientific publications dealing with the beliefs and ethics of primitive man, as well as a writer on matters of prehistoric archæology with a knowledge based upon practical experience in cave exploration and excavation.