In Britain Anthropological societies became very elitists, and Often excluded Missionaries. But missionaries had much to offer.
"A Final Word The 1865 meetings of the recently formed Anthropological Society of London (1865:286) offer what may be an appropriately provocative concluding word on missionary-anthropologist relationships. At those meetings, when the "Efforts of Missionaries Among Savages" came under scurrilous but bitter attack, none of the participants challenged William Josiah Irons, an honorary Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, who was reported as saying in the discussions, " 'But for the missionaries, there would have been no Anthropological Society.' It was their efforts that had furnished the base of the science; and in his opinion, anthropology owed everything to the missionaries."
(Missiology October 2002 pg 470 Article by John Hitchen "Relations between Missiology and Anthropology)
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