Margaret Feeny

Margaret Mary Feeny was the founder and first director of London's Africa Centre charity, from 1963 to 1978.

Biography

Margaret Feeny was born in 1917, the eleventh of twelve children of a businessman.
Feeny was General Secretary of the Sword of the Spirit, which became the Catholic Institute for International Relations, and then Progressio. She conceptualized the Africa Centre, London, and organised support from both Africans and Britons to bring the idea to fruition. The Africa Centre was registered as a charity in 1961, and in 1964 opened to the public at 38 King Street, Covent Garden, with Feeny as its first director. She remained in that role from 1963 until 1978.
In 1975, she moved to Bath, Somerset. She became a Social Democratic Party then Liberal Democrat councillor in 1994, and Mayor of Bath in 1996, but had a stroke while on official business to their twin town of Aix-en-Provence. She died in early 2012 aged 94 and her funeral took place at St John's Church, South Parade, Bath, on 18 January.