Mary MacLeod Banks was a folklorist.

Mary MacLeod McConnel, born in Edinburgh, the daughter of D.C. McConnel, a colonist of Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, spent her formative years in Australia and Europe. Her husband Alfred Banks, an English architect, died on a journey to the United Kingdom. She became a long serving member of the Folklore Society

Folklore Society

The Folklore Society was founded in England in 1878 to study traditional vernacular culture, including traditional music, song, dance and drama, narrative, arts and crafts, customs and belief...

 from 1906, later serving on its council and as President from 1937−9. Though based in London, Banks travelled extensively throughout Europe gathering material and researching the many papers she wrote for the society's journal. She maintained contact with the Pitt Rivers Museum

Pitt Rivers Museum

The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed through that building.The museum was...

, and during the second world war donated artefacts she had collected during her fieldwork. Her published works were signed with the abbreviated form M. M. Banks, and were mainly concerned with traditions and festivals.