William H. J. Rangeley
William H J Rangeley (1910-1958) was an officer in the colonial administration of Nyasaland and a scholar of the oral history and ethnography of the peoples of what is now Malawi. Early life and education William Rangeley, who was the son of two early Northern Rhodesia pioneers, Henry Rangeley and Florence (née van Breda), was born at Fort Jameson, (now Chipata, Zambia), in what was then Northern Rhodesia, on 2 July 1909. He attended a school in Plumtree in Southern Rhodesia, and then the Diocesan College at Rondebosch, a suburb of Cape Town, in South Africa. He attended Rhodes University in Grahamstown and, under a Rhodes Scholarship he studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, from which he subsequently received a diploma in Anthropology following study during an extended leave. Administrative career After his scholarship at Oxford University ended, he was appointed to the colonial administration of Nyasaland in 1934. He served in many districts and became District Commissioner successively in Nkhotakota District in the Central Province and Mzimba District in the Northern Province. He was promoted to become the Provincial Commissioner for the Southern Province in 1952. He retained his post as Provincial Commissioner until his death in 1958. Between 1892