Ursula McConnell was educated at the Brisbane High School for Girls and later at New England Girls' School, Armidale, New South Wales. From 1905 to 1907 she attended King's College, London. In 1923 she began a doctorate in anthropology at University College, London. However she returned to Australia in 1926 without finishing her thesis.
McConnell began ethnographic research in 1927 among the Wik-Mungkana people on Cape York Peninsula. She visited far North Queensland on several field-trips, the last in 1934. Australian Aboriginal culture was to be the focus of the bulk of her scholarship; she published numerous articles in Oceania and a book, Myths of the Munkan (Melbourne, 1957).With those of Donald Thomson, her publications form the foundations of present-day anthropological research on western Cape York Peninsula.
Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A150214b.htm
Accessed 15/12/09.
