John Francis Marchment Middleton

John Francis Marchment Middleton (22 May 1921 – 27 February 2009) was a British professor of anthropology in the United States, specializing in Africa. He was director of the International African Institute in 1973-74 and in 1980-81. His work on the Lugbara religion is considered a classic of African anthropology.

Middleton was born and grew up in London, England. He received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of London in 1941. After World War II he returned to school and received his bachelor of science degree from Oxford University in 1949, and a doctorate in anthropology in 1953, also from Oxford. Middleton did his field work for his Ph.D. with the Lugbara in Uganda, beginning in 1949.

From 1953 to 1954, Middleton was a lecturer in anthropology at the University of London. From 1954 to 1956, he was a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. In 1956, he returned to the University of London where he taught until 1963, during fieldwork in Zanzibar in 1958. From 1963 to 1966, he was a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and he did fieldwork in Nigeria. In 1966 he started teaching at New York University, but that year he was offered a professorship at Yale University, which he accepted, so for a while he taught at both institutions. In 1972, Middleton left Yale to accept appointment as professor of African anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. This also enabled him to resume fieldwork, which he did in 1976 and 1977 in Ghana. In 1981, he returned to Yale, doing fieldwork in Kenya in 1986. Middleton continued to teach at Yale as a professor emeritus until his death in 2009.

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