Richard Pankhurst (academic)

Richard Keir Pethick Pankhurst OBE (3 December 1927 – 16 February 2017) was a British academic, founding member of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, and former professor at the University of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. His books have been reviewed in scholarly journals, with Edward Ullendorff calling his The Ethiopians as another testimony to his "remarkable diligence and industry in the service of Ethiopian studies". He is known for his research on economic history and socio-cultural studies on Ethiopia.

Pankhurst was born in 1927 in Woodford Green to left communist and former suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst (aged 45) and Italian anarchist Silvio Corio (aged 52). His maternal grandparents were Emmeline and Richard Pankhurst.

Pankhurst studied at Bancroft's School in Woodford, then at the London School of Economics, from which he received a doctorate in economic history, on which Harold Laski acted as an advisor.

Sylvia Pankhurst had been an active supporter of Ethiopian culture and independence since the Italian invasion in 1935, and Richard grew up knowing many Ethiopian refugees. Sylvia was a friend of Haile Selassie and published Ethiopia, a Cultural History in 1955. In 1956, she and Richard moved to Ethiopia. He began working at the University College of Addis Ababa, and in 1962 was the founding director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies. He also edited the Journal of Ethiopian Studies and the Ethiopia Observer.

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