Northcote W. Thomas

(1868 - 1936)

The first anthropologist working for the British government to conduct fieldwork in West Africa, Northcote W. Thomas amassed a large collection of artifacts—now held at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge—for which, according to his reports, he often traded or bartered. He published more than thirty books, including an English–Ibo dictionary and a book on crystal gazing, spurred by his interest in the Society for Psychical Research.