Enid Mumford

Mumford [née McFarland], Enid Mary (1924–2006), social scientist, was born on 6 March 1924 at Iona, Groveland Avenue, Wallasey, Cheshire, the daughter of Arthur McFarland (1893–1966), a hospital secretary, and later a prominent barrister and chief stipendary magistrate of Liverpool, and his wife, Dorothy, née Evans, a headteacher. Her family and intellectual heritage were in the north-west of England. She attended Wallasey high school before joining the social sciences department at Liverpool University, where she took a special interest in social psychology and graduated BA in 1946. She then went to work in industry, first with Rotol Ltd, aeronautical engineers, as a personnel manager responsible for industrial relations strategy for a large number of female staff, and subsequently with the Liverpool clock and watch maker J. D. Francis as a production manager. The experience of working in industry close to the shop floor proved invaluable for her later academic work as a teacher and researcher. On 28 July 1947, at the parish church of St Nicholas, Wallasey, she married James Muir (Jim) Mumford, a dental surgeon one year her senior (son of James Montgomery Mumford), who was later to become professor of operative dental surgery at Liverpool University. They made their home at 4 Windmill Close, Appleton, Warrington, Cheshire, situated conveniently between the universities of Liverpool and Manchester. They had two children, Michele and Colin.