| Administrative History | Margaret Kennedy Knight was born in Herefordshire in 1903 and graduated from Cambridge in the early 1920s. She began working at the National Institute of Industrial Psychology in London, but moved to Aberdeen after her marriage, in 1936, to Arthur Rex Knight (1903 - 1963). She lectured in the Department of Psychology from c 1948 - c 1970, and throughout her life, was engaged in an active programme of research and publication. A committed and outspoken proponent of Scientific Humanism, she presented two BBC radio programmes on the subject in the 1950s, which were published in 1955 as Morals Without Religion, and Other Essays (London: Dobson, 1955).
Other published works include Humanist Anthology, from Confucius to Bertrand Russell (London: Barrie&Rockliff, 1961); Honest to Man: Christian Ethics Re-examined (London: Elek, 1974): and with her husband, Rex Knight, A Modern Introduction to Psychology (London: University Tutorial Press, 1948), 7th edn, 1966. She also edited William James, William James: a Selection from his Writings on Psychology , The Pelican Psychology Series, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1950).
An appreciation of Arthur Rex Knight is given in Aberdeen University Review , 40, (1963 - 1964), 63 - 64. See also Who was Who, 1961 - 1970 . |
| Description | The core of this collection is a series of subject-based files containing cuttings, photocopies and correspondence, dating from the 1950s - 1980s, and arranged by Margaret Knight into the following alphabetical sequence: BBC and religious broadcasting; Catholicism - anti; Catholicism - pro; Catholic delinquency; Christian apologetics; Christianity - general; Communism; Comparative religion; Delinquency; Double-think; Education, including material on 1966 art, moral education, and overseas education; Hell; Historical material regarding the Christian church; Humanism - great humanists; Humanism - pamphlets; Jung; Pontifications; References (mainly for quotations and to printed works - includes correspondence about Morals Without Religion, and Other Essays (London: Dobson, 1955)); Religious instruction - cuttings, pamphlets and correspondence; Rumour; Slavery - anti; Social impulses; Statistical data - including opinions on religious matters; Suffering - miscellaneous cuttings; Miscellaneous - including material on sex education, family planning and the population explosion; Euthanasia
Other material deposited includes school and college lecture notes; articles and reviews by Margaret Knight, including cuttings, off-prints, photocopies and annotated drafts of articles, 1950s - 1980s; notebooks entitled Route Diaries, giving accounts of travels by Margaret Knight, 1964 and 1975. |