Elaine Morgan

AUTHOR, SCRIPTWRITER, ANTHROPOLOGIST

Brought up near Pontypridd and living her later life in Mountain Ash, Elaine Morgan was an acclaimed writer both in TV and in the field of anthropology. She wrote scripts for the acclaimed 1981 biographical drama The Life and Times of David Lloyd George and TV adaptations such as 1975’s How Green Was My Valley, and 1979’s Testament of Youth. Morgan’s 1972 book The Descent of Woman challenged the male-centred outlook of Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape, although her feminist thinking was sidelined in academic circles at the time. Her theories have since achieved significant attention, and were discussed at length by David Attenborough in the 2016 radio series, The Waterside Ape.