Editing Margaret Murray (section)

===Final years: 1953–1963===
[[File:Todrmurray.jpg|thumb]]
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|quote = [I] went to her hundredth birthday party where she sat enthroned—no other word for it—surrounded by family and friends. A distant cousin—what we would have called an elderly lady of eighty—was bringing greetings from even more distant relatives in Australia and suddenly forgot, as happens to many people half her age and a third of the age of Ma Murray, one name. "How stupid of me, Cousin Margaret", she said, "how stupid the name has quite gone out of my head." Ma Murray focused her eyes on this old lady twenty years her junior—cold eyes in which feeling seemed extinguished in the neutrality of eternity—and said gently and kindly, "Not stupidity, my dear. Not stupidity:
just mental laziness."
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|source = [[Glyn Daniel]], 1964{{sfn|Daniel|1964|p=2}}
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In 1953, Murray was appointed to the presidency of the Folklore Society following the resignation of former president Allan Gomme. The Society had initially approached [[John Mavrogordato]] for the post, but he had declined, with Murray accepting the nomination several months later. Murray remained president for two terms, until 1955.{{sfnm|1a1=Oates|1a2=Wood|1y=1998|1pp=9, 91|2a1=Drower|2y=2004|2p=132|3a1=Sheppard|3y=2013|3p=229}} In her 1954 presidential address, "England as a Field for Folklore Research", she lamented what she saw as the English people's disinterest in their own folklore in favour of that from other nations.{{sfn|Drower|2004|p=132}} For the autumn 1961 issue of ''Folklore'', the society published a ''[[festschrift]]'' to Murray to commemorate her 98th birthday. The issue contained contributions from various scholars paying tribute to her – with papers dealing with archaeology, fairies, Near Eastern religious symbols, Greek folk songs – but notably not about witchcraft, potentially because no other folklorists were willing to defend her witch-cult theory.{{sfnm|1a1=James|1y=1963|1p=569|2a1=Simpson|2y=1994|2p=94}}

In May 1957, Murray had championed the archaeologist [[T. C. Lethbridge]]'s controversial claims that he had discovered three pre-Christian chalk [[hill figure]]s on [[Wandlebury Hill]] in the [[Gog Magog Hills]], Cambridgeshire. Privately she expressed concern about the reality of the figures.{{sfnm|1a1=Welbourn|1y=2011|1pp=157–159, 164–165|2a1=Gibson|2y=2013|2p=94}} Lethbridge subsequently authored a book championing her witch-cult theory in which he sought the cult's origins in pre-Christian culture.{{sfn|Doyle White|2016|p=16}} In 1960, she donated her collection of papers&nbsp;– including correspondences with a wide range of individuals across the country&nbsp;– to the Folklore Society Archive, where it is now known as "the Murray Collection".{{sfn|Oates|Wood|1998|pp=32, 35}}
[[File:Margaret Murray interviewed by the BBC.jpg|thumb|left|Murray being interviewed by the BBC, {{Circa|1960}}]]

Crippled with [[arthritis]], Murray had moved into a home in [[North Finchley]], north London, where she was cared for by a retired couple who were trained nurses; from here she occasionally took taxis into central London to visit the UCL library.{{sfn|Drower|2004|p=132}}
Amid failing health, in 1962 Murray moved into the [[Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Welwyn]], [[Hertfordshire]], where she could receive 24-hour care; she lived here for the final 18 months of her life.{{sfnm|1a1=Drower|1y=2004|1p=132|2a1=Sheppard|2y=2013|2p=230}} To mark her hundredth birthday, on 13 July 1963 a group of her friends, former students, and doctors gathered for a party at nearby [[Ayot St. Lawrence]].{{sfn|Drower|2004|p=132}} Two days later, her doctor drove her to UCL for a second birthday party, again attended by many of her friends, colleagues, and former students; it was the last time that she visited the university.{{sfnm|1a1=Janssen|1y=1992|1pp=80–81|2a1=Drower|2y=2004|2p=132|3a1=Sheppard|3y=2013|3pp=230–231}} In ''Man'', the journal of the [[Royal Anthropological Institute]], it was noted that Murray was "the only Fellow of the Institute to [reach their centenary] within living memory, if not in its whole history".{{sfn|Anonymous|1963|p=106}} That year she published two books; one was ''The Genesis of Religion'', in which she argued that humanity's first deities had been goddesses rather than male gods.{{sfn|Drower|2004|p=132}} The second was her autobiography, ''My First Hundred Years'', which received predominantly positive reviews.{{sfnm|1a1=Drower|1y=2004|1p=132|2a1=Sheppard|2y=2013|2p=231}} She died on 13 November 1963, and her body was cremated.{{sfnm|1a1=Drower|1y=2004|1p=132|2a1=Sheppard|2y=2013|2p=231}}