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Raymond Firth in the Antipodes: A ‘Capacityfor Organising and Administration as well asFirst-Rate Anthropology’Geoffrey GrayUniversity of Queensland
Christine WinterFlinders University2021
POUR CITER CET ARTICLEGray, Geoffrey & Christine Winter, 2021. “Raymond Firth in the Antipodes: A ‘Capacity for Organising andAdministration as well as First-Rate Anthropology’”, in Bérose - Encyclopédie internationale des histoires del'anthropologie, Paris.
URL Bérose : article2477.html
Publication Bérose : ISSN 2648-2770© UMR9022 Héritages (CY Cergy Paris Université, CNRS, Ministère de la culture)/DIRI, Direction générale despatrimoines et de l'architecture du Ministère de la culture. (Tous droits réservés).Votre utilisation de cet article présuppose votre acceptation des conditions d'utilisation des contenus du site deBérose (www.berose.fr), accessibles ici.Consulté le 29 juin 2022 à 13h20min
Publié dans le cadre du thème de recherche «Histoire de l’anthropologie en Australasie (1900-2000)»,dirigé par Geoffrey Gray (University of Queensland).
Raymond Firth ‘is remembered today principally as an area specialist and by historians of the
discipline as an ‘organization man’. [1] This doesn’t discount his importance as an economic
anthropologist, particularly his ‘work on non-industrial economies’. Indeed British
anthropologist Maurice Bloch credits him with ‘single-handedly’ creating ‘a British form of
economic anthropology, which is still thriving’. [2] John Davis, in an obituary for the British
Academy, described him as an ‘organisation man from the 1930s, both in his theory and in his
administrative activities. … In administration he was a consistent and fair-minded advocate
for anthropology at home and abroad’. [3] It is this aspect – a consistent and fair-minded
advocate for anthropology – that we pursue by examining his place in the establishment and
development of anthropology in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is a persona that is
clearly seen after WWII. There were hints before then, such as his role in putting the needs of
the institution ahead of personal friendship in enabling Adolphus Peter Elkin to succeed him
as professor at Sydney in 1932.
Firth was consulted over all senior academic appointments in the Antipodes between 1946
and 1965 during this crucial foundation and consolidation time for academic anthropology in
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Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. [4] He promoted mostly graduates from the LSE,
especially those from the Antipodes. An unexpected consequence was that through these
appointments he introduced new ways of thinking about the discipline that contrasted with
that existent in Australia before the war, which is evident, particularly, in the appointments
of Siegfried Frederick Nadel and John Arundel Barnes. [5] Grown and nurtured in the
Antipodes, we argue, his Southern sensibilities remained throughout his career, and allowed
him in turn to bring fresh approaches to anthropology in the Antipodes.
Beginnings in AustralasiaRaymond William Firth was born in Auckland on 25 March 1901. [6] His English-born father,
Wesley Firth, a builder, had arrived as a thirteen-year-old, while his mother, Mary nee
Cartmill, was born and raised in Auckland. After attending a local primary school, he went to
Auckland Grammar School. He enrolled in economics at Auckland University College, a
constituent college of the University of New Zealand. [7] His university education was
supported by the Senior National Scholarship scheme. He completed a BA in Economics,
whilst also reading courses in English and chemistry. His MA, ‘The Kauri Gum Industry’
(1924), was in economics and history. It ‘took him into the Far North and into the
predominantly Maori communities of the time’. Uncommon for an economics thesis he
interviewed people about their lives and work. He also learnt some Maori. William
Anderson, professor of philosophy at Auckland, pushed Firth’s interests in Maori beyond the
descriptive and towards the anthropological.
Initially he planned to do an economics thesis concentrating on the frozen meat trade, but he
decided to undertake a number of courses in anthropology while writing up his thesis.
Already familiar with Malinowski’s work in the Trobriands he decided after six months to
abandon economics to begin his career in anthropology under Bronislaw Malinowski. [8] He
was Malinowski’s first student to successfully complete his doctorate. ‘Primitive Economics
of the New Zealand Māori’ was completed in 1927 and published in 1929. He recalls that his
own observations in the field, “although very scattered, very fragmentary, were part of it, but
mainly it just was the amount of literature on the Maori in New Zealand, and I worked at the
British Museum Library – seat L5 – for something like three years!’ [9]
He had been awarded, in 1928, a Rockefeller Foundation (the Laura Spellman Memorial
Fund) funded research fellowship by the Australian National Research Council. Until 1930
there were no equivalent resources for research in the British empire. ‘As a result, Sydney
became a center from or through which field research was carried on, not only in Australia,
but through the area,’ Melanesia and Oceania. [10] He and Reo Fortune, a fellow New
Zealander who was at Cambridge, had discussed going to either Rennell Island or Tikopia,
Polynesian outliers. Rennell was Firth’s initial choice. [11]Rennell was out as H. Ian Hogbin,
Radcliffe-Brown’s student, was to undertake research there as part of a geological
expedition. After further discussion and advice from Malinowski, Firth settled on ‘the
Massim area, preferably Sudest or Misima in the Louisiades as yet almost unworked’.
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Fortune, however, deciding to work in Dobu (Tewawa Island), freed Tikopia. [12]
On his way to Tikopia, Firth stopped over in Sydney, where he first met A. R. Radcliffe-
Brown and Ian Hogbin; soon after he left for Auckland, returning to Sydney in mid-April,
1928, to prepare for a year on Tikopia. [13] In mid-May Firth and Hogbin left Sydney on the
Burns Philp steamer SS Malaram for Tulagi, the capital of the British Solomon Islands
Protectorate (BSIP), now the Solomon Islands. Travelling on the mission boat Southern Cross,
Hogbin was put down on the coral atoll Ontong Java, and Firth went onto Tikopia. [14] In
August 1929 Firth, having spent 52 weeks on Tikopia, returned briefly to Sydney via Brisbane
before departing for Auckland to see his family.
Bernard Deacon, slated to be lecturer in Radcliffe-Brown’s fledgling department, had died of
blackwater fever in Malekula in the British and French Condominium of the New Hebrides,
now Vanuatu. This led to Radcliffe-Brown taking on all teaching and supervisory
commitments for 1927. Little wonder that he described it as ‘one of the busiest years of my
life’. [15] Cambridge graduate Camilla Wedgwood filled the vacant position the following
year. Firth replaced Wedgwood in 1930. [16] There were few professional opportunities
across the Tasman Sea.
There was no formal anthropology in New Zealand other than a certificate in anthropology
offered at Otago University, Dunedin in the South Island. It was for one year and focused on
museum and archaeology studies. A diploma in social science was offered at Auckland but
anthropology, such as it was, was largely left to the museums. There were other attempts to
introduce a cultural focused anthropology particularly the Board of Maori Ethnological
Research (BMER), established in 1923. [17] Its founders, Apirana Ngata and Peter Buck (Te
Rangi Hiroa) were ‘sandwiched between two generations of New Zealand anthropologists;
between the amateur ethnologists who founded the Polynesian Society in the 1890s,
Stephenson Percy Smith, Edward Tregear and Elsdon Best and the new generation of New
Zealand-born, overseas-trained, anthropologists who came to the fore in the 1920s and
1930s’. Neither had any formal training in ethnology, in ‘our university days’ but they had
‘field experience that few, if any, ethnologists have been favoured with… . Neither the
ethnologists of the old school like Peehi [Best] nor the younger generation like [Henry
Dervish] Skinner … could tackle the things that you or I know to be of importance’. [18]
Indeed, as Conal McCarthy and Paul Tapsell argue, ‘this Maori-conceived, Maori-led and
Maori-funded [board] effectively took over the management of anthropological research in
Aotearoa/New Zealand and exerted considerable influence on related bodies: the
Department of Native Affairs, the Dominion Museum (in Auckland), the Alexander Turnbull
Library, and the Polynesian Society and its journal. It is a remarkable story of indigenous
agency unparalleled in the history of museums and anthropology in settler societies’. [19]
Ngata, lawyer, land reformer, politician and scholar, saw the value of enlisting anthropology
as a way of preserving Maori culture and more generally as part of the ‘armoury of colonial
administration’. He, along with Buck, was ‘keenly interested in the government of native
4 / 25
races’. [20] As a member of the government and its civil service, he had a practical need: ‘a
function of government … was to discover and appraise “stubborn, conservative elements” of
Maori culture, and “especially to judge whether in their nature they were detrimental to
progress … or worth preserving in a modified form”’. [21] Māori had reached what Firth
called the ‘phase of adaptation’, a problematic assumption for Ngata. [22] Ngata nonetheless
praised Firth as a ‘competent ethnologist who brings to his study honesty of purpose and a
sympathetic understanding of Māori people’. [23] Ngata could be critical of Firth’s work – ‘he
had failed to penetrate the psychological strata of Maori life and thought’ – and he quoted
Firth’s work extensively in his major report to parliament in 1931 on Maori land development.
Despite these reservations Buck and Ngata entertained the possibility of encouraging Firth
to implement Ngata’s proposal to ‘establish a department of anthropological field research
which would later train officials in native affairs and islands administration’. [24] Ngata and
Buck also read Felix Keesing with interest. He was at Auckland a year after Firth; his interest
was in the social and cultural background of Maori. His MA thesis The Changing Maori was
published under the authority of the Board of Maori Ethnological Research. [25] It and his
postgraduate study in Hawai’i was funded by BMER, at the instigation of Buck.
It was their custom to ‘regularly [discuss] their Pakeha protégés’: first Skinner, Firth and
Keesing, then Ivan Sutherland [at Canterbury University College] and later Ernest
Beaglehole [at Victoria University College]. With the exception of Skinner, who could
scarcely be described as a protégé, whom both Ngata and Buck disliked and treated to some
particularly acerbic comments, their judgments tended to be equivocal. Indeed Skinner’s
lack of Maori language skills and focus on material culture/archaeology set him apart. [26]
Skinner produced descriptive rather than analytic accounts of Maori life. There is little doubt
that Skinner did not attract the same interest as Firth, Keesing, Sutherland and
Beaglehole. [27]
As historian Keith Sorrensen wrote: ‘Anthropology for Buck [Hiroa], as for Ngata, was no
mere academic game, but was a necessary means of facilitating action in the field, in land
development and in cultural regeneration’. [28] In the early 1930s Ngata’s endeavours were
marred by criticism including a royal commission investigating financial irregularities. In
the end with Ngata losing his position and Buck in Hawai’i, the BMER petered out. But their
voice was not unheeded or lost. [29]
In Sydney, despite Rockefeller funding for research and subsidizing the chair, the financial
crisis threatened the continuance of anthropology. It was a crisis made worse by Radcliffe-
Brown deciding to leave for Chicago. In early 1929 he had written to Malinowski pointing out
that as soon as Firth returned from fieldwork in Tikopia he would then see his ‘way to getting
back to Europe. I should expect to see him succeed me here’. [30] It was to Chicago (initially
for twelve months, it became five years), not Europe that Radcliffe-Brown was headed, and
finally to Oxford in 1937 where he remained until his retirement.
At the end of 1931 the Rockefeller Foundation renewed its grant for a further five years.
Research funding was assured until 1935 but the situation regarding future funding
5 / 25
subsidizing the chair was not so clear. The Commonwealth, and the state governments, had
indicated they were no longer prepared to fund the department to the extent they had. The
states withdrew financial support with the exception of New South Wales but its grant was
greatly reduced. [31] Without Commonwealth and state government funding, the Rockefeller
subsidy for the chair would cease. These were dire times for anthropology. It was rumoured
that the university ‘could not even guarantee Radcliffe-Brown’s salary’. [32]
Radcliffe-Brown had expressed great confidence in Firth’s abilities and saw him as ‘the only
qualified man with the necessary special knowledge to plan research in the regions with
which Sydney is concerned and to train students for the work in that region’. [33] When Firth
was appointed acting head on Radcliffe-Brown’s departure, the financial future remained
uncertain and the university was reluctant to commit itself beyond 1933. There was, despite
the pessimism, a belief that Firth was the right person for the tasks ahead. It was confirmed
by Wedgwood’s observation that Firth, she told Malinowski, combined a ‘capacity for
organising and administration as well as first-rate anthropology, and such people are about
as rare as icicles in mid-summer’. [34]
The Commonwealth government wisely sought detailed information on the anthropology
department and its training courses, while it considered whether to continue funding the
chair. In a memorandum entitled ‘On the Study of Anthropology in Australia and the
Western Pacific’, Firth provided the first overview of the department since its
foundation. [35] It had no immediate effect on the funding situation and the future of the
department remained as uncertain as ever. [36] A further complication was that after little
more than a year into the job, Firth requested 12 months leave to write up his Tikopia
research at LSE under the supervision of Malinowski. Wedgwood pointed out to Malinowski
that the situation at Sydney had taken its toll on Firth:
Raymond is very tired and I am devoutly thankful for his sake that he isgoing home. All this administrative work has taken up far too much of histime and it is to my mind rather surprizing how much he managed to getthrough. But six months or a year’s leisure to write should enable him tofinish his first two books on Tikopia. [37]
Malinowski discussed with Firth the person best suited as Firth’s locum tenens. It had to be
somebody who would not be ‘difficult afterwards to dislodge’ and an appointment ‘no longer
than a year’, thus leaving the position open for Firth to return. [38] There was no opportunity
for Wedgwood as there was a very strong anti-woman element in the University Senate,
further compounded by her correct belief that a woman would not be acceptable to the men
of the ANRC. [39] Ian Hogbin had recently completed a doctorate under the supervision of
Malinowski, who declared himself to be ‘personally interested in [his] career and
development’; Malinowski understood Hogbin was making ‘very good success’ as a lecturer
and ‘developing in his theoretical grasp’ of anthropology. In short, he would be an ‘excellent
[short-term] successor’. [40] Firth showing his ability to recommend a candidate best for the
interests of the university and concomitantly not letting friendship interfere in his
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judgement, proposed Elkin, a forty-one-year-old ordained Anglican priest, and London
University College-trained anthropologist as his ‘substitute’. [41] He considered Hogbin
unsuitable to ‘handle the ANRC side of things’, aware administration was not one of Hogbin’s
strengths. He added that ‘for a permanent appointment a man can take time to work himself
into the research administration’ but Elkin was ‘equipped from the start’. Moreover, the
deepening financial crisis made it essential to have someone with Elkin’s administrative
abilities. [42] Elkin was well connected. He was on the Australian Board of Missions, the
representative of the Bishop of Newcastle on the Sydney Anglican Diocese Council and had
considerable administrative experience as rector of St James Church in Morpeth, northern
New South Wales. [43] Firth, conscious of responsibilities not only to the department but
also to Radcliffe-Brown, wanted to leave the department with a chance should the situation
improve. He recommended to the university that Elkin take his position on an acting basis
for twelve months.
The financial situation deteriorated and the University Senate presented Firth with an
ultimatum: resign or stay. Twelve months leave was no longer an option. Even had he stayed
his future was not assured. Firth resigned. On hearing of Firth’s imminent departure,
Radcliffe-Brown wrote to Elkin, ‘distressed that Firth is leaving … and that the fate of the
department is so doubtful’. He asked whether there was any chance that Elkin would take
over and assured him of his support. [44] Firth left for London in December 1932. Elkin was
appointed lecturer-in-charge with the task of overseeing the closure of the department. He
spent three days at Sydney and the rest of the week at Morpeth, a country town in northern
New South Wales. He was to accept no new students. [45]
The financial situation improved in late 1933. The university advertised the position of
professor of anthropology for an initial five-year period. There were several scenarios raised,
including the possibility of Radcliffe-Brown returning to Sydney or that Firth might be
induced to return. [46] Firth did not apply. Elkin was informed on 22 December that he was
appointed professor for five years from 1 January 1934. The opportunities for Firth were
greater at LSE, and he was, as Charles Seligman told German anthropologist Paul Kirchhoff,
‘Malinowski’s pet pupil’. [47]
Firth recalls Sydney as
‘… important for my aesthetic development and breadth of culturalunderstanding what I sometimes used to call the “golden years.” We werea cosmopolitan group of diverse interests, but we saw much of oneanother, dining together nearly every night at a Swiss restaurant, theClaremont Cafe, and having frequent parties at one another’s rooms. …. Itwas a lively, amusing period that no doubt helped to strengthen myfeeling for the exotic.’ [48]
There was a dynamic conviviality that grew around the Sydney department. Radcliffe-Brown
frequently ate with them. [49] These young anthropologists included Hogbin, Ralph
Piddington, C.W.M. Hart, W.E.H. Stanner, the Americans W. Lloyd Warner and linguist
7 / 25
Gerhardt Laves. Taught by Radcliffe-Brown, they were part of a cohort that developed a
strong sense of themselves as emissaries of a new discipline. Piddington enjoyed the
‘solidarity … [during] the old days of the Group’, as he called them, their solidarity being
increased by anthropology’s newness and hence its opposition to other ‘decaying disciplines’.
These young anthropologists were on a journey to make a career in the new discipline of
social anthropology. [50] Firth was a few years older; he was thirty-one. On the cusp of his
international career he was photographed, in 1932, by Sarah Chinnery, wife of EWP
Chinnery, New Guinea government anthropologist: learned in front of his books,
immaculately dressed, urbane with cigarette and cigarette etui in hand, and confidently
holding the gaze. [51] Around this time Margaret Mead, then married to Reo Fortune and on
the brink of leaving him for Gregory Bateson, observed that Firth was ‘an impossible little ex-
Methodist bounder, petty pup in office… He’s just awful, although a pretty boy, with his mask
on’. [52] Whatever charm revealed by Sarah Chinnery did not impress Mead.
With the exception of Warner, who briefly attended some of Malinowki’s seminars before
arriving in Sydney, all of the Sydney cohort went on to attend LSE for doctoral studies in
anthropology. Hogbin completed his doctoral studies in 1931. Malinowski arranged a
position for Firth. Hart and Piddington arrived just before Firth, both funded by Rockefeller
Foundation fellowships. Hart found work at Toronto and helped establish anthropology
there. [53] Piddington, denied a position in Australia, worked for Firth as his research
assistant, and later received funding through Firth to edit Essays in Polynesian Ethnology by
Robert W. Williamson. He was appointed to Aberdeen University in 1938. [54] Theirs was a
friendship that lasted throughout their lives. Other Australians such as Stanner arrived at
LSE in 1937, soon after Phyllis Kaberry, another Sydney graduate. [55] Hogbin retained his
friendship with Firth and took his sabbaticals at LSE.
The Australians had completed an MA with field experience. Their doctorates at LSE were,
afterall, based on their Australian fieldwork. [56] There was no similar preparation for the
New Zealanders; they, too, had to leave to gain further academic qualifications and a career.
Firth’s trajectory is atypical, as was that of fellow New Zealander Reo Fortune, who attended
Cambridge. He had an MA from Auckland, a diploma in anthropology from Cambridge and
completed his PhD at Columbia, New York in 1931. [57] As it was, those New Zealanders who
attended LSE did so after the war. Only Felix Keesing attended LSE, between 1933 and 1934,
when Firth was there. He had completed a DLitt at Auckland. Like Firth he was recruited to
the intelligence services during the war; in 1942 the Office of Strategic Services called him to
Washington, D.C., where he worked with South Pacific materials and lectured to high-
ranking naval officers on the cultures of the area. [58] Firth was attached to British naval
intelligence, compiling Pacific island handbooks and maps.
By the end of the war Firth had replaced Malinowski as professor. He played a key role in
helping to establish the Colonial Social Science Research Council (1944-45) and was its first
Secretary. In part it was set up to provide an empirical base of knowledge for colonial
development after the war. [59] In some sense it can be seen as a continuation of the project,
8 / 25
‘the Changing African’, developed by Malinowski, JH Oldham and Deidrich Westermann in
the 1930s. Firth’s reputation had grown during the war. In 1947 he was recruited as one of
four academic advisors to the Australian National University, his portfolio was establishing a
Research School of Pacific Studies (RSPacS). [60]
Post War Expansion of Higher Education: Influence, Patronageand PowerThose British trained anthropologists who had established themselves during the interwar
period are described by Adam Kuper as ‘the pioneers’. [61] Of those pioneers Raymond Firth,
E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Daryll Forde stand out in the immediate post war period. Firth was
made professor in 1944; Forde the following year; Evans-Pritchard in 1946. They were
dispensers of patronage; they held ‘key positions on government grant-giving committees’;
they held ‘the decisive voice in the appointment of staff and often in the choice of … graduate
students’. They could ‘effectively withhold or grant promotions, leaves and other privileges,
and his recommendation was crucial in any application for a research grant or for a position
elsewhere. He was generally the only effective channel of communication with the university
authorities and grant-giving bodies’. [62]
The post-war expansion in higher education, especially in Australia and New Zealand
enabled Firth to exercise greater influence over academic appointments than either Evans-
Pritchard or Forde in the Antipodes. [63] Firth appears to have exercised influence
judiciously. He had a skill, recognised by Radcliffe-Brown in 1929, that exceeded mere
administration, but aimed at orchestrating research in the region. Firth brought
anthropological observation and analysis into the arena of academic politics. Part of his
special skill was how he negotiated closeness and distance. He above the others was most
entangled – he had taught most of the anthropologists seeking positions or they had been
colleagues – but was able, so he claimed, and it was generally accepted, to stand apart from
personal friendships and make recommendations which reflected the needs of the respective
university. Evans-Pritchard and Forde were consulted over senior positions within the UK as
well but Evans-Pritchard seemed somewhat disinterested at times, such as when asked to
advise on a professorial appointment at the Australian National University (1957). [64] In
spite of this apparent lack of interest, George Stocking contended that after the war Evans-
Pritchard became the single most important figure in British social anthropology,
dominating the profession both intellectually and institutionally. [65]
During the second half of the 20th century, a tension over its position intellectually and
culturally permeated Australia; the ‘cultural cringe’, conflicting desires of a fledgling
nationalism to hold local culture and identity proud, and an undercurrent of doubt that
handed admiration and worth to a Britishness that resided in the metropole. Firth managed
to assuage this tension, by being both at the same time, Antipodean and at the centre of a
metropolitan Britishness. In the Antipodes, Firth’s influence and authority was rarely
challenged; it reflected, in part, a desire to choose one of their own to advise on senior
9 / 25
appointments. This was certainly a key factor in his appointment as an advisor to the
fledgling Australian National University. [66] Firth had a cloak of Britishness by virtue of his
professorship at LSE. Institutions in the Antipodes, especially before WWII, frequently
sought advice from British scholars and frequently appointed British born scholars to
university positions. [67] Firth operated successfully in these environments. As one colleague
remarked, he ‘was the centre of power with major connections in corridors that
mattered’. [68] The Aotearoa/New Zealand-born anthropologist Cyril Belshaw (1921-1918),
who regarded Firth as a mentor – ‘I owe him a lot’ – saw him nevertheless as ‘manipulator
number one … always done in an urbane and kindly manner’. Firth, he told one of us, ‘had
come a vast way from being the initially brash but upwardly mobile acolyte of Malinowski. In
the context of the cut-throat competition that was there when he gained the chair, that was
quite an achievement’. [69]
There was hardly an academic position in the Antipodes between 1945 and 1970 in which Firth
didn’t have some say: he was consulted over a proposed position, as an advisor: sometimes as
a selection panel member (usually chair) making a recommendation, or as a referee for some
of the applicants or breaking a deadlock of a local selection committee. This is not to say that
his advice was necessarily accepted, although more often than not it was; sometimes local
competitors (gatekeepers) challenged or attempted to undermine Firth’s recommendations.
Notably, when advising on a successor to Elkin at the University of Sydney he met opposition
from Elkin himself. Elkin saw himself as the pre-eminent anthropologist of Australia (if not
the region) and he had no compunction in interfering in the appointment of his successor, as
well as the appointment of a foundation professor at Auckland University College and that of
a senior lectureship in anthropology at the University of Western Australia.
Elkin took a personal interest in his favoured students and their advancement. He was a
provider of patronage, a gift giver adept at withholding his bounty to those who crossed him
as well as promoting his chosen students. [70] Firth sought a role different to that of Elkin.
Unlike Elkin he protected no legacy and he was free to assist in making an appointment that
best suited, in his view, the needs of the university. In short, Firth’s method was to take the
institution, look at the individual, and explicate a fit that met the implicit criteria. [71] His
skill shifted from the descriptive and analytic to the predictive. How would this person
perform in the position in the structure of the institution? He was able to write a personal
report, for the selection committee; often suggesting a short list which was usually adopted
by the selection committee, including even those for whom he had acted as a referee. He
seamlessly shifted to a new persona, disengaged from earlier actions, and turning instead to
the selection committee as his primary concern as he set out the criteria by which one or
more of the candidates were a fit for the university. Firth made assessments on the qualities
he thought a professor and head of department required: accepting responsibility, providing
intellectual leadership and having the ability to deal with the brightest students. The focus in
the end was on ‘the fit’ of the applicant to the needs of the university. He did not always voice
a choice, leaving that to the university selection panel. Despite personal entanglements he
was able to overcome possible conflicts of interest. [72] To illuminate the way Firth went
10 / 25
about this work, we discuss appointment of S. F. Nadel to the foundation chair of
anthropology at the ANU and the appointment of R. O. Piddington to the foundation chair at
Auckland University College.
In 1946 the Australian government enabled through legislation and funding the
establishment of the Australian National University in Canberra, the capital. [73] The
foundation of the ANU created a novel and prestigious Commonwealth-funded university
dominated by research and interested in connections with politics and policy advice. An
initial problem for the ANU and its academic advisors was finding suitable Australian
applicants for senior academic positions. Thus the university sought to encourage the return
of expatriate scholars, many of whom were part of the (interwar) brain drain to the United
Kingdom. [74] To this end the interim university council appointed a London-based
Academic Advisory Board consisting of eminent Australian scholars, Howard Florey
(medicine), Mark Oliphant (physics), Keith Hancock (social science) and New Zealander
Raymond Firth (Pacific studies). Each was expected to accept appointment as director of
their specific schools once the university was formally established. In the event, only
Oliphant stayed on to direct a school although Hancock returned in the mid-50s to direct the
School of Social Sciences. [75]
One of Firth’s tasks was finding an anthropologist with the ‘right capacity and also with
much first-hand acquaintance of Pacific problems’. It would be difficult. Firth considered
suitable Australian candidates, including Elkin, but ‘someone rather different is needed at
Canberra’. This left two Australian candidates: Hogbin (then reader at the University of
Sydney) and Stanner (then director of the East African Institute of Social and Economic
Research, Makerere College, Uganda), of which only Hogbin deserved ‘very serious
consideration’. [76] Firth knew him well and had ‘a very great respect for his capacity’. But he
would not, Firth felt, ‘be the best person to occupy the Chair of Anthropology, and be
responsible for the ultimate standard of teaching and research’. He should be ‘offered a
Readership in the new School, a Professor should be looked for elsewhere’. [77]
Firth had discussed the position with Evans-Pritchard, and they agreed ‘there were only two
men in England, S.F. Nadel and M. Fortes, of the right calibre’. There was one other
possibility, Audrey Richards, trained under Malinowski, academically accomplished and
experienced in university and colonial administration. Her career at the time was
exceptional given the paucity of women in senior academic positions and the impediments
confronting them. [78] In Firth’s view Richards was ‘not only of high quality scientifically but
also is deeply associated with anthropological research in the Colonial field’. [79] Hancock,
who knew and liked Richards, was keen, if she could be persuaded. The unexpected
resignation of Stanner as director of the Institute for Social Research at Makerere College in
Uganda solved the issue. Richards was sounded out to replace him. [80]
Hancock, disregarding Firth’s preference for Nadel, supported Meyer Fortes. Nevertheless,
he asked Firth to tell him ‘a little about Nadel personally – his parentage, education, age,
character, etc?’ [81] Firth provided a short biography that talked him up. [82] In May 1949
11 / 25
Hancock resigned from the Academic Advisory Committee. [83] Disappointed that Hancock
had withdrawn, Firth urged the council to fill the positions in anthropology ‘as soon as
possible’. He noted that a chair was being created at Liverpool, ‘and there was a chance that
Nadel might be lost … unless the opportunity of securing him was seized at once’. Firth
underlined the qualities Nadel possessed which he considered were necessary for such a
position. He reiterated what he had told Hancock. Nadel, an ambitious man about 40 years
old, was
relatively easy to get on with, and extremely able. Talks very freely butwell with ideas. A very good knowledge [of] sociology and psychology … aswell as in Social Anthropology and with a cultivated taste in the arts andan especially good knowledge of music… The theory in his publications …is implicit rather than manifest, but he has an extremely good theoreticalequipment. Very stimulating to students of all grades. [84]
Firth told the council that he could ‘think of no one better to occupy a new Chair in such an
important field that demands high theoretical capacity’. As for his lack of experience in the
Pacific he had no doubt Nadel would ‘remedy this very rapidly, and his comparative
experience in Africa would be of the greatest value’. [85] He also recommended Oskar Spate,
geography, and J. W.(Jim) Davidson, Pacific history.
Firth discussed with Nadel the conditions of employment in early November 1948, noting
that formal duties would not begin until 1951. He described the position as ‘attractive —
directing and doing research, and postgraduate teaching’. [86] He also informed Nadel of the
probable appointments of Melanesianist H Ian Hogbin and Australianist W.E.H. Stanner as
readers, telling him, that as they both have ‘knowledge of the Pacific field’ it would relieve
him ‘of the initial burden, leaving… [him] free to plan the work of the anthropology
department’. [87] Douglas Copland, Vice-Chancellor of the ANU, cabled Nadel formally
offering the Chair; Nadel accepted the following day. [88]
We have often wondered if Firth had an ulterior reason for pushing Nadel toward ANU. It
seems to us that the answer lies in his personal relationship with Nadel. We have a hint of
this when Firth declined the directorship of the RSPacS; the ANU Vice-Chancellor asked Firth
whether it had anything to do with Nadel. Firth assured him it was not Nadel, rather a
decision he and Rosemary had made, but it revealed a tension between Nadel and Firth. [89]
As Firth noted, Nadel had a sensitivity to ‘his professional status and with most decided
opinions upon the best way to set up and organize academic institutions’. [90]
Nadel’s appointment addressed the lack of theory in Australian anthropology, but he had
limited impact on Australian Aboriginalist anthropology. Stanner was critical of the Sydney
department, especially its teaching and the journal Oceania. In his opinion both reflected a
lack of interest in theory; he was critical also of the ‘thin sociological studies of the
Middletown type’ pursued by the department. He told Firth that ‘since you and Radcliffe-
Brown left I can’t find one theoretical gleam’. [91] A view shared by Lester Hiatt, for example,
an undergraduate student at Sydney in the early 1950s, who recalled that ‘what may have
12 / 25
passed as modern theory in the dying days of Elkin’s regime was no longer regarded as the
state of the art north of the Equator’. [92] At Sydney it was addressed by the appointment of
John Arundel Barnes, who although developing network theory with Clyde Mitchell rarely
invoked it when teaching his students; one of his doctoral students recalled ‘in our four years
of supervisorial relationship, I don’t think he mentioned Network Theory even once.’ [93]
Nadel arrived in Australia in February 1951. He had a detailed research agenda, which he
developed with Firth and in discussions with anthropologists he met in the United States of
America on his way to Australia. [94] Nadel proved to be an excellent fit for the ANU, and as
Firth promised, developed a direction of research that encompassed the Pacific and wider
region, even stretching to India. [95] Though Nadel died young, the parameters he set
remained a strength at the ANU until the dismantling of the Research School of Pacific and
Asian Studies around 2010.
At Auckland University College the situation was far from straightforward and like ANU the
task was to establish a new department, which had first been proposed in 1937. [96] It was
raised again in 1945 but deferred until the war had ended. At the end of 1946 there was a
submission to the College Council that a lectureship in Māori language be created as ‘a step
towards the later establishment of a chair in Māori and Polynesian ethnology’. The whole
matter of the chair and its staffing was thus raised; it was resolved that Ernest Beaglehole
(Victoria University College, Wellington), H. D. Skinner (University of Otago), Raymond
Firth (LSE), Sir Peter Buck (Bernice P Bishop Museum, Honolulu), Felix Keesing (Stanford
University) and A. P. Elkin (University of Sydney) be invited to express ‘their views (in the
form of a memorandum) to the proposed course’. [97] They were asked to advise on
Staffing requirement for School (number of members, status andtechnical assistants); Administration —including space for museum andlaboratories; Equipment; Library; Amount and kind of practical workrequired for each stage; whether the study of Anthropology should beincluded as part of the B.Sc. Degree; whether it is desirable or necessaryto link the study of the Māori Language with that of Anthropology; in whatdirection the study of Anthropology would be of benefit in the socialstudies of Māori people in relation to their future (Buck, Firth andBeaglehole); Relationship to Maori Welfare (Buck); Relationship to CivilService Course in [the] Pacific (Firth and Elkin).
Only Beaglehole and Elkin provided detailed suggestions: staffing, course content and the
relationship to New Zealand’s dependencies and the colonial Civil Service. Elkin and Firth
strongly advocated a chair in Social Anthropology and advised how such a department could
be staffed. Firth suggested one professor who ‘is a specialist in Social Anthropology, and who
is prepared to apply himself to the study of the Pacific and in particular to Polynesian
problems’. There were views on Maori studies and language. Archaeology and physical
anthropology should be taught; however, there was no shared vision but a view that these
subjects need not be housed in anthropology. [98] There was consensus addressing ‘the
problems of the Maori people, of the island peoples whom New Zealand has in its
13 / 25
charge’. [99] Elkin was not in favour of teaching Maori. Felix Keesing did not reply.
After some prevarication the position was advertised. Applicants were advised that the
School of Anthropology ‘shall provide for study in the whole field of Anthropology’. They
were further advised that the staff ‘will include a lecturer in Maori and Polynesian languages
and linguistics’. The appointment was initially for five years, ‘renewal thereafter
indefinitely’. A London-based selection panel – Firth, Evans-Pritchard and Forde – was
convened. The applicants were Ralph Piddington, W. R. Geddes, W. E. H. Stanner, Harry
Hawthorn, Richard Taylor and Percival Hadfield.
Firth, as often happened was in a peculiar but not unusual position, being named as a referee
by three of the candidates, Piddington, Stanner and Geddes. Firth not only encouraged
Stanner to apply for the chair, [100] but also provided a glowing general assessment of
Piddington, which was attached to Piddington’s application. [101] Geddes had recently
completed his doctorate, supervised by Firth. Only Piddington and Hawthorn had current
senior academic positions. Hadfield and Taylor were quickly eliminated. [102] When asked
to provide a reference, Firth’s practice ‘on these occasions’ was to ‘act as a reference … on the
understanding that I do not just write a glowing testimonial but give a frank estimate of [a
candidate’s] capacities and qualities’. [103]
On 10 May the committee interviewed Piddington and Stanner. Hawthorn was considered in
his absence. After carefully considering the ‘testimonials and letters of reference’ about
Hawthorn, it ‘endeavoured to assess his qualifications as accurately as possible without the
advantage of a personal interview’. While his ‘testimonials were good, his publications were
diffuse and rather thin’, and he was ranked below Piddington and Stanner. Stanner lacked
the interest and enthusiasm of Piddington, as well as experience in setting up a department,
and his teaching experience was nugatory. The London committee summed up:
‘There is … some doubt in the depth of interest in anthropologicalscholarship as distinct from practical affairs, and his career suggests, asone member of the Committee put it, “he often goes to the starting postbut does not always run.” On present anthropological publications, hisrecord is somewhat weak. Dr Stanner is therefore an unknown quantity,while there is no doubt that Dr Piddington would do the job well if hecould be attracted to the Chair.’ [104]
The panel recommended Piddington.
Unbeknownst to the London Committee, Elkin had been asked to provide his opinion on the
candidates. [105] His views were contrary to those of the committee. Elkin’s report, with its
impression of an insider able to comment on the abilities and qualities of the candidates
albeit uncertain about the candidates other than Stanner and Piddington, is a
conglomeration of hearsay, gossip, anecdote and fact, it was a deliberate misrepresenting of
the qualities and abilities of the applicants, specifically against Piddington. He was
dismissive of both Geddes and Hawthorn, even questioning the value of their doctorates.
Despite a cunning veneer of restraint, it is a thoroughly dishonest document. [106] Elkin
14 / 25
harboured a deep animosity towards Piddington since Piddington’s field research in
Western Australia in 1931-32, that led to Piddington publicly criticising the treatment of
Australian Indigenous workers. Elkin’s approach to state and commonwealth governments
was circumspect, cautious and accommodating for the sake of access to field sites and a
general containment and advancement of Indigenous people under anthropological
guidance. [107] Elkin brazenly informed Auckland that Piddington’s Western Australian
research had not been original, but plagiarised Elkin’s own field notes. [108] The upshot was
that Auckland offered the position to Stanner. Why they believed Elkin’s judgement above
the London committee’s is unclear as there is no paper trail in the archives at Auckland.
Stanner, not untypically, dithered. He wrote to Firth seeking his advice. Firth pointed out
that if he accepted the Auckland position he would be better placed to seek a more attractive
chair sometime in the future. [109] Perhaps he was thinking of Sydney. Stanner had made no
secret that he expected to be Elkin’s successor at Sydney. Elkin had not dissuaded him. [110]
Elkin was due to retire in 1955 which coincided with Stanner’s view that he would be ‘fully
ready’ for a professorship in ‘a couple of years at least’. Stanner’s career had stalled; the war
and other things made it later than even I wanted to be’, he told Elkin. [111]
Firth’s recommendation had gained Stanner his first position of leadership in anthropology
as director of the Institute for Social Research at Makerere College in Uganda in 1947. He
resigned after little more than a year, leaving Firth annoyed. [112] Stanner notified Auckland
that he was declining their offer. They immediately turned to Piddington.
Piddington wrote to Firth toward the middle of November thanking him ‘for all you did to
secure this appointment for me and for your invaluable preliminary guidance. Thanks to
your introductions, I have made very pleasant contacts’. Moreover, he was grateful that
Geddes had accepted the lectureship that he understood was on the basis of Firth’s
insistence. He introduced Maori language, appointing Bruce Biggs, and later Jack Golson to
archaeology. He arranged for Biggs to do his doctoral studies at Indiana university, and he
encouraged and supported Mahataia Winiata to undertake postgraduate studies at
Edinburgh University. [113] In Edinburgh he worked under Kenneth Little, and later studied,
briefly, at the LSE under Firth. He and Biggs were the first Maori to gain their doctorates
overseas. [114]
The remarkable aspect of the appointment process for the Auckland chair is not Firth’s initial
recommendation that rated Piddington as the best candidate to fit local needs, or Elkin’s
dishonest and spiteful attempt to thwart Piddington, nor Stanner’s self-destructive
vacillation between longing for and fearing responsibility. The remarkable element for us is
Firth’s advice to Stanner to accept the chair. In the wider scheme, this advice undermined
Firth’s assessment for Auckland University College. But he was responding to Stanner who
asked what he should do. His advice was made solely with Stanner’s career in mind. It is here
that we see a peculiar approach of Firth’s, which we might call a compartmentalisation of his
allegiances. As a final observation Stanner was already earmarked for a position at ANU. This
was his fallback. It took another fifteen years before he was made professor, in 1964.
15 / 25
ConclusionFirth oversaw the institutional emergence and consolidation of social anthropology in the
Antipodes. He was there at its birth, when he was at the University of Sydney under
Radcliffe-Brown. After a brief time as head of department, he enabled Elkin to succeed him.
On his return to LSE he witnessed, and was a participant in, a discipline that was increasingly
confident of itself and as opportunity arose he moved into higher and more authoritative
positions. Importantly, he had the support of Malinowski although LSE was increasingly
focussed on British Africa rather than the South West Pacific. He was offered the LSE chair
in 1944 but did not take it up until December 1945. From there his influence spread and his
reputation for balanced and thoughtful advice on teaching anthropology and appointments
to senior positions was recognised outside of the British Isles. After the war he was critical in
making the senior foundational appointments at the ANU, and the University of Auckland.
He oversaw Elkin’s replacement and subsequently, for Barnes in 1957, at Sydney. He was
consulted, in 1955, over anthropology at the University of Western Australia. His advice was
sought, in 1963, by Monash University over establishing a department of anthropology.
Firth retired in 1968. His retirement coincided with the decade that saw a major expansion of
anthropology across both Australia and New Zealand, yet he was sidelined for much of that
post-1968 period as an authoritative figure able to advise and recommend. [115] The
universities used local selection panels, such as the ANU when in 1964 it offered a second
chair to FJ Bailey. He declined. Firth quickly advised Stanner, by now close to retirement, to
apply. It was a final gesture to an old friend that ensured he was appointed. And it wisely
took into account Stanner’s predicament to prefer being second to accepting real
responsibility.
Firth’s focus was on ‘the fit’ of the applicant matched to the needs of the university. His
appointments were free of theoretical considerations outside that of the ANU. He knew or
had taught most of the applicants. Despite such entanglements he was able to overcome, or
rather compartmentalise, possible conflicts of interest. On the other hand, not all
appointments he recommended were met with satisfaction. For example, when he was
consulted over appointments to the University of British Columbia, Cyril Belshaw told one of
us that Firth’s choices were unsatisfactory: ‘He recommended with flowery language two
people to my department when I was recruiting. One turned out to be pompously hopeless
and the other, while doing some fairly good work, earned a reputation for manipulating
women students to recruit them to feminist ideology in a rather extreme way’. [116] While
Belshaw had a personal axe to grind, there is some merit to his assessment. At times Firth
did not have the institution’s best interest at heart, but individual academics longer-term
careers, and, more importantly a chess board of British-Anglo anthropology appointments
in Britain, its dominions and spheres of influence. He oversaw the development of the
discipline on a grand scale, while paying close attention to local differences and needs. Was
his eye sharpened by the place Ngata and Buck attempted to crate for anthropology? Did the
fleeting power of Sydney as a regional centre allow him to analyse and utilise a potential for
16 / 25
LSE and his role in it? A Southern sensibility, we claim, permeated his politics, that ensued
universality and recognised difference and locality. He also trusted the locality to draw in the
anthropological researcher. The Pacific, as in the case of the ANU, or Maori studies and
linguistics, would grow on the respective scholar. This is a reversal to the idea that expertise
of a specific locale or culture was a pre-requisite. This, too, we see as a Southern sensibility.
[1] Freddy Foks, 2020. “Raymond Firth, Between Economics and Anthropology”, in BEROSE International
Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris.
[2] Maurice Bloch, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/feb/26/guardianobituaries.obituaries
[3] J. H. R. Davis. “Raymond William Firth 1901-2002”. Proceedings of the British Academy 124, 2004, 88 (71-88).
[4] We have drawn on Geoffrey Gray and Doug Munro, “Australian Aboriginal Anthropology at the
Crossroads: Finding a Successor to A. P. Elkin, 1955”, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 22 (3), 2011,
351-369; Geoffrey Gray and Doug Munro, ‘Leach would be first rate – if you could get him: Edmund Leach
and the Australian National University, 1956’, History Compass, 10/11, 2012: 802-811; Geoffrey and Doug
Munro, ‘Establishing anthropology and Maori language (studies), Auckland University College: the
appointment of Ralph Piddington, 1949’, in Regna Darnell and Frederic W Gleach (Eds.), Histories of
Anthropology Annual, Volume 7, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012: 49-82; Geoffrey Gray and Doug
Munro, ‘The Department was in some disarray’: the politics of choosing a successor to S.F. Nadel, 1957, in
Regna Darnell and Frederic W. Gleach (Eds.), Histories of Anthropology Annual, Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 2014; Geoffrey Gray, A Cautious Silence; the politics of Australian anthropology, Canberra,
2007.
[5] Jana Salat, Reasoning as Enterprise, Edition Herodot, 1983 ; Barnes, like Nadel an Africanist, was taught
and mentored by Isaac Schapera, Max Gluckman, Meyer Fortes, EP Evans-Pritchard and Daryll Forde.
Barnes had a research fellowship at Manchester, followed by a Readers’ appointment at LSE.
[6] A fuller account of Firth’s early life in New Zealand, see Patrick Laviolette, Mana and Māori culture:
Raymond Firth’s pre-Tikopia years, History and Anthropology, 2020; also J. H. R. Davis. “Raymond William
Firth 1901-2002.” Proceedings of the British Academy 124,2004, 71–88.
[7] Auckland, Victoria University College (Wellington), Canterbury (Christchurch), and Otago (Dunedin).
[8] M Freedman (ed.), Social Organization. Essays presented to Raymond Firth, vii-ix. London: Frank Cass & Co.
Ltd. 1967, viii.
[9] Paul Thompson, University of Essex, Department of Sociology: ’Interview with Raymond Firth’ in
’Pioneers of Social Research, 1996-2018’ 4th Edition, UK Data Service [distributor], 2019-04-08, SN:6226,
P a r a . 1 - 1 2 3 4 .
17 / 25
http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-6226-6, https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk//QualiBank/Document/?id=
q-f62c40b4-f352-4e24-a157-cb39f0b2f29c
[10] George W Stocking Jr, After Tylor. British Social Anthropology 1888-1951, University of Wisconsin Press,
1995, 340. See also Geoffrey Gray, A Cautious Silence. 2007 including appendices; ‘Dividing Oceania:
transnational anthropology, 1928-30’, in Regna Darnell and Frederic W Gleach (eds.), Histories of
Anthropology Annual, Volume 6, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010, 48-65.
[11] Radcliffe-Brown to HE Gregory (Bernice P Bishop Museum), 2 April, 1928. Elkin Papers (University of
Sydney) hereafter EP: 164/4/2/12. Richard Feinberg and Richard Scaglion, Introduction: The Polynesian
Outliers, in Richard Feinberg and Richard Scaglion, (eds.), Polynesian Outliers: The State of the Art,
Ethnology Monograph 21, University of Pittsburgh, 2012.
[12] Firth to Radcliffe-Brown, 21 September 1927. Archive of Sir Raymond Firth, British Archive of Political
and Economic Science, London School of Economics. FIRTH7/10/4. Radcliffe-Brown told HE Gregory of the
Bernice P Bishop Museum in Honolulu that ‘Firth being a New Zealander is already well qualified in Maori
and general Polynesian ethnology’. Radcliffe-Brown to HE Gregory, 2 April, 1928. EP: 164/4/2/12.
[13] This is not pertinent to this essay but the purchase of stores not only foodstuffs and such like but items
for exchange (especially cultural items) and purchase (food and cultural items) are also included.
[14] Hogbin to Radcliffe-Brown, 20 May 1928. EP: 159/4/1/49. Besides Law and Order (1934), Hogbin wrote a
n u m b e r o f s c h o l a r l y a r t i c l e s o n O n t o n g J a v a . F o r H o g b i n ’ s c a r e e r , s e e
http://www.berose.fr/?An-Accomplished-Fieldworker-A-Biography-of-H-Ian-Hogbin Firth wrote several
important ethnographic monographs on Tikopia. See, for example, We, the Tikopia: A Sociological Study of
Kinship in Primitive Polynesia (1936); Primitive Polynesian Economy (1939); The Work of the Gods in Tikopia
(1940). He made two subsequent visits, 1952 and 1966.
[15] Radcliffe-Brown to Robert Lowie, 3 July 1928, EP, 41/17.
[16] Wedgwood had been at LSE with Firth, Edward Evans-Pritchard, Hortense Powdermaker and Isaac
Schapera; Of this young cohort who found themselves in Sydney, only Reo Fortune and Raymond Firth
were born in Australasia, Hogbin came to Australia as a child. She was also an external and viva examiner
of Hogbin’s PhD thesis.
[17] Board of Maori Ethnological Research, The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 32, No. 4(128)
(December, 1923), 253-254. Conal McCarthy and Paul Tapsell, Te Poari Whakapapa: The Origins, Operation
And Tribal Networks of The Board Of Maori Ethnological Research 1923–1935. Journal of the Polynesian
Society, 128 (1), 2019, 92 (87–106).
[18] M. P. K. Sorrenson, ‘Polynesian Corpuscles and Pacific Anthropology: the home-made anthropology of
Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Peter Buck’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 91 (1), 7 (7-27).
[19] McCarthy and Tapsell 2019, op. cit., 88.
18 / 25
[20] Sorrenson, op. cit., 1992, 17. Information on many of the individuals referred to in this article may be
gleaned from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb
[21] Apirana Ngata (ed.) 1931. “Māori Land Development.” Appendices to the Journal of the House of
Representatives. Wellington: Government Printer, 1931, 1-21.
[22] Raymond W Firth. Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Māori. Wellington: R.E. Owen Government
Printer. 1929
[23] Ngata, op. cit., 1931, 8.
[24] Cf. I. C. Campbell, Staffing Native Administration in the Mandated Territory of Samoa. New Zealand
Journal of History, 34, 2 , 2000. 276-295. Cf . The University of Sydney training colonial officials in
anthropology.
[25] Felix Keesing, The Changing Maori, New Plymouth, Printed by Thomas Avery, 1928 [Memoirs of the
Board of Maori Ethnological Research Vol. 4].
[26] McCarthy and Tapsell, op. cit., 2019, 128 (1), 92 .
[27] Oliver Sutherland, Paikea. the life of I.L.G. Sutherland. Christchurch. Canterbury University Press.2013,
152.
[28] MPK Sorrenson ‘Buck, Peter Henry’, from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the
E n c y c l o p e d i a o f N e w Z e a l a n d , u p d a t e d 3 0 - O c t - 2 0 1 2 U R L :
h t t p : / / w w w . T e A r a . g o v t . n z / e n / b i o g r a p h i e s / 3 b 5 4 / b u c k - p e t e r - h e n r y
[29] See Gray and Munro, op. cit., 2011.
[30] Radcliffe-Brown to Malinowski, 2 January 1929. NLA, MS 482, 850 (c).
[31] Memo, Prime Minister’s Department, 7 April 1932, NAA: A518, P806/1/1, Part I; Mitchell (Premier of
Western Australia) to Robert Wallace (Vice-Chancellor, University of Sydney), 13 June 1931, SROWA: ACC
653, 120; Memorandum, Prime Minister’s Department. 30 November 1932, NAA: A518, P806/1/1, Part II.
[32] Stanner to Firth, 8 August 1956, FIRTH8/5/8.
[33] Radcliffe-Brown to Malinowski, 2 January 1929; Radcliffe-Brown to HG Chapman (hon. Treasurer,
ANRC), 24 December 1931, ANRC Papers, NLA, MS 482, file 850 (c).
[34] Wedgwood to Malinowski, 25 December 1931 (provided from the Malinowski Papers at the Yale
University Library by Michael Young). Wedgwood and Firth shared the same birth-date.
[35] McLaren to Radcliffe-Brown, 24 February 1931, EP: 165/4/2/46; Raymond Firth, Memorandum on the
Study of Anthropology in Australia and the Western Pacific, c.1932, ANRC Papers, NLA, MS 482, file 849; also
19 / 25
EP: 163/4/1/105 (hereafter Memorandum). Firth, Report on the Committee on Anthropological Research,
July 1931 – July 1932, EP: 161/4/1/63; Radcliffe-Brown to secretary Prime Minister’s Department, 26 February
1931, EP, 163/4/1/46.
[36] It was unusual for the Commonwealth government to subsidise a state university chair.
[37] Wedgwood to Malinowski, 29 October 1932. Malinowski Papers (MP), Yale University Library, courtesy
of Michael Young. Although raised in New Zealand, Firth saw himself as going ‘home’ to England. Firth on
Firth: Reflections of an Anthropologist. Videorecording, lnstitut fur den Wissenschaftichen Film,
Gottingen, Germany. 1992. When interviewed in 1974 he declared that he and Rosemary were European in
outlook and this mitigated against his remaining at ANU as director of Research School of Pacific Studies.
Raymond Firth interviewed by Margaret Murphy. http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-215006398
[38] Malinowski to Firth, 25 May 1932. MP.
[39] Wedgwood to Malinowski, 25 December 1931. MP.
[40] Malinowski to Firth, 25 May 1932; Firth to Malinowski, 1 June 1932. MP.
[41] Wedgwood was 31, Hogbin 28. Elkin had trained under diffusionists and Egyptologists Grafton Elliot
Smith and WJ Perry.
[42] Firth to Malinowski, 1 June 1932. MP.
[43] Tigger Wise, The Self-made Anthropologist: A life of AP Elkin, Allen and Unwin, 1985, 73-111.
[44] Radcliffe-Brown to Elkin, 2 August 1932; Elkin to Firth, 11 September 1932; Firth to Elkin, 18 September
1932, EP: 158/4/1/41; Wedgwood to Malinowski, 29 October 1932. MP.
[45] See Gray, A Cautious Silence, 2007, 70-76.
[46] Malinowski to Masson, 3 May 1933, ANRC Papers, NLA, MS 482, file 853 (c).
[47] Seligman to Kirchhoff, 19 April 1932. Malinowski Papers, LSE File7/3.
[48] David Parkin. An Interview with Raymond Firth, Current Anthropology, 29 (2), 1988, 328. The Claremont
Café (Kings Cross) was run by ‘German émigré Walter Magnus; he introduced an exotic, international
flavour to the dining experience’. Dunn, Mark, Kings Cross, Dictionary of Sydney, 2011,
http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/kings_cross, viewed 30 Jan 2021.
[49] Stocking Jr, After Tylor. 1995, 347.
[50] Piddington to CWM Hart, 31 March 1955. Copy in authors’ possession, courtesy of Kenneth Piddington.
[51] Sarah Chinnery, Portrait of Sydney University anthropologist Professor Raymond Firth, Anthropology,
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Sydney, 1932 [picture], National Library of Australia, PIC/11131/65 LOC Album 1116/2.
[52] Margaret Mead to Ruth Benedict, letter dated 26 October 1931. MMP S3, LOC. Cited in Caroline Thomas,
The Sorcerers’ Apprentice. A Life of Reo Franklin Fortune, Anthropologist, 2015, 104. Unpublished.
[53] It was revealed in 1956 that he had not completed his doctorate.
[54] Edited by Ralph Piddington ; with an analysis of recent studies in Polynesian history by the Editor.
Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] University Press, 1939. See also Gray Geoffrey, 2018. “A Desire for Social
Justice : Life and Work of Ralph O’Reilly Piddington” in Bérose, Encyclopédie en ligne sur l’histoire de
l’anthropologie et des savoirs ethnographiques, Paris, Lahic-iiac, UMR 8177.; also Geoffrey Gray,
‘“Piddington’s indiscretion”: Ralph Piddington, the Australian National Research Council and Academic
freedom’. Oceania, vol. 64 (3), March, 1994. 217-245.
[55] Gray 2007, op. cit., passim for their careers trajectories. .
[56] For example: Hogbin was awarded his MA from Sydney in 1929 and his PhD from LSE in 1931. ‘Dr
Hogbin is a graduate of Sydney University and after doing considerable field work in Ongtong Java, came
to the School to work up his results under the direction of Professor Malinowski.’ Secretary to The
Principal, University of London, 10 March 1932. Student Record , Herbert Ian Hogbin, LSE Archives. See also
field reports published in the journal Oceania.
[57] See Geoffrey Gray, ’Being honest to my science’: Reo Fortune and J.H.P. Murray, 1927-30. The Australian
Journal of Anthropology, vol 10 (1),1999, 61.
[58] Geoffrey Gray, ‘Australian Anthropologists and WWII’, Anthropology Today, vol 21 (3), June 2005, 18-21.
[59] David Mills, Difficult Folk. A Political History of Social Anthropology, Berghahn, 2008; Davis, op. cit., 2005.
[60] SG Foster and Margaret M Varghese, The Making of the Australian National University 1946-1996, Allen &
Unwin 1996, 3-82.
[61] For a detailed account of the interwar students (funded by the Rockefeller Foundation) at LSE see
Goody, The Expansive Moment, 1995, 26-28 and passim. Most of the major figures, with few exceptions, in
the post-war institutionalisation of the discipline across the British Empire trained at the LSE, under
Seligman and Malinowski, including Firth, Audrey Richards, Edmund Leach, Isaac Schapera, Meyer Fortes,
Siegfried Nadel, Ian Hogbin, Monica Hunter (later Wilson), Godfrey Wilson and Max Gluckman.
[62] Adam Kuper, Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School, London: Routledge, 1983, 125.
[63] He is not regarded as major theorist, although at the time most professors had some theory which
they propounded, or as Kuper notes, it was, a time ‘when every professor had to have a theory’. Adam
Kuper, Meyer Fortes: the person, the role, the theory. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 34 (2). 2016, 131
(127-139). Cf. Goody, The Expansive Moment, 1995, 24-25. The way in which Forde and Evans-Pritchard
exercised their authority in the United Kingdom is outside the interest of the authors’ of this paper.
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[64] See Goody, op. cit, 1995, 81-83. Audrey Richards and Phyllis Kaberry never had a chair; Lucy Mair had
to wait until 1963.
[65] Stocking, op. cit., 1995, 430.
[66] Despite recognising difference, Australians and New Zealanders have a symbiotic relationship with
each other, despite fierce sporting rivalry, so that at times they are interchangeable.
[67] Tamson Pietsch. Empire of Scholars. Manchester University Press. 2013.
[68] Cyril Belshaw. Bumps on a Long Road, volume 1. Webzines of Vancouver, British Columbia. (Print on
demand) 2009, 61.
[69] Belshaw to Gray, e-mail, 12 January 2010. Firth told a story of accidently being in the right place at the
opportune moment, first when Malinowski was ill and secondly when he was offered the LSE chair.
[70] See Geoffrey Gray, The “ANRC has Withdrawn its Offer”: Paul Kirchhoff, Academic Freedom and the
Australian Academic Establishment, Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol 52(3), 2006, 367-369
(362-377). Initially he supported Stanner; he moved his support to Phyllis Kaberry; when she declined his
offers Elkin turned his attention to Ronald Berndt, who with his wife Catherine became the much sought-
after husband and wife team. Geoffrey Gray, ‘“You are … my anthropological children”: AP Elkin, Ronald
Berndt and Catherine Berndt, 1940-1956’, Aboriginal History, vol. 29, 2005, 77-106.
[ 7 1 ] M a u r i c e B l o c h . S i r R a y m o n d F i r t h . T h e G u a r d i a n . O b i t u a r i e s S e c t i o n . 2 0 0 2 .
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/feb/26/guardianobituaries.obituaries.
[72] There is an exception that we are aware of: Firth wrote to one of us that he had taken a personal
interest in Ralph Piddington’s career and had helped him finding suitable employment (Firth to Gray
3 February 1993). This included Aberdeen before the war and Edinburgh after the war.
[73] The foundation of the ANU is discussed in, Foster & Varghese, op. cit., 3-82; Raymond Firth, The
Founding of the Research School of Pacific Studies. Journal of Pacific History 31 (1), 1996, 3-5.
[74] See Pietsch, op. cit., , 2013.
[75] Foster and Varghese op. cit., 24-27, 41, 44-50, 126-29, 137-39.
[76] Firth had recommended Stanner for the position at Makerere.
[77] Firth to Copland. 25 January 1949. School of Pacific Studies — Notes on Discussion between the Vice-
Chancellor and Professor Firth on Monday 23rd May 1949, FIRTH7/5/8.
[78] The only other instances of senior university appointments and long-lasting careers in anthropology
and sister disciplines in Britain around that time were Eileen Power and Lucy Mair at LSE and Margery
Perham at Oxford. Power was professor of economic history at LSE; Perham was an Africanist based at
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Balliol College, Oxford; Mair was, successively, reader in colonial administration and reader (later
professor) in applied anthropology at LSE.
[79] Firth to Copland. 25 January 1949. School of Pacific Studies — Notes on Discussion between the Vice-
Chancellor and Professor Firth on Monday 23rd May 1949, FIRTH7/5/8.
[80] See David Mills, ‘How Not to be a “Government House Pet”: Audrey Richards and the East African
Institute for Social Research’, in Mwenda Ntarangwi, David Mills and Mustafa Babiker (eds), African
Anthropologies: History, critique and practice. London: Zed Books, 2006, 76–98.; cf. Melinda Hinkson, ‘Stanner
and Makerere: On the “insuperable” challenges of practical anthropology in post-war East Africa’, in
Melinda Hinkson and Jeremy Beckett (eds.), An Appreciation of Difference: WEH Stanner and Aboriginal
Australia. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2008, 44–57.
[81] Hancock to Firth, 3 March 1949, FIRTH7/7/11. See also Geoffrey Gray, 2018. “A figure of importance. Life
and Work of Siegfried Frederick Nadel” in BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology,
Paris, 2018.
[82] Firth to Hancock, 9 March 1949, FIRTH7/7/11.
[83] Hancock to Copland, 3 May 1949; Hancock to Copland, 24 May 1949. (carbon copy), FIRTH7/7/11.
[84] Firth to Hancock, 9 March 1949, FIRTH7/7/11. We have to comment that overall Nadel was not easy
to’get on with’ see Gray, op. cit. 2018.
[85] Extract from Firth, 6 July 1949. ANUA19/19.
[86] £A2000 per annum, ‘but if a Professor is stationed in the U.K. pending establishment of the University
at Canberra, £2000 sterling’ Superannuation, FSSU or analogous. Tenure, till 65. Study leave: one year
away in four on full pay, ‘with a substantial contribution to overseas travel – quite apart from field
research travel. This allows frequent visits to Europe.
He added that the university would provide reasonable travel and removal expenses. Firth to Nadel,
25 July 1949; Firth to Nadel, 12 November 1948; Firth to Nadel 28 January 1948, FIRTH7/7/26.
[87] Firth to Nadel, 8 June 1949, FIRTH7/7/26. Firth had funded Hogbin, as an ANU research fellow, to
conduct a survey of the state of anthropology in Melanesia preparatory to him taking up the readership.
[88] Firth enabled a doctoral placement for Peter Lawrence (who had a tortured relationship with Reo
Fortune, his Cambridge supervisor), and in conjunction with Nadel, research fellowships for K.E. Read and
Cyril Belshaw (1950), both had completed their doctorates under Firth. Derek Freeman, also an LSE
graduate, was appointed research fellow in the same year.
[89] Raymond Firth Interview with Margaret Murphy 1974. National Library of Australia.
http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-215006398
[90] Raymond Firth, ‘Obituary: Siegfried Frederick Nadel’, American Anthropologist, 59 (1), 1957, 122
23 / 25
(117-124).
[91] Stanner to Firth, 6 April 1946, FIRTH7/7/31.
[92] L. R. Hiatt, Kinship and Conflict. A Study of an Aboriginal Community in Northern Arnhem Land. Canberra:
ANU Press. 1965, 17. J.A. Barnes was Hiatt’s doctoral supervisor at the ANU.
[93] Paul Henley, John Barnes – An Appreciation. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 29,
Complimentary special issue: in memory of John Barnes (2011), 14 (13-15). See also Lyn Schumaker,
Africanising Anthropology. Fieldwork, networks, and the making of cultural knowledge in Central Africa. Duke
University Press, 2001.
[94] Judith Wilson and Michael Young, 1996. ‘Anthropology at the Research School of Pacific and Asian
Studies: A Partial History’, Canberra Anthropology, 19 (2), 62-91.
[95] In 1951 Kenelm Burridge and Peter Worsley started their doctoral studies. Marie Reay, Richard
Salisbury, Robert Glasse, Ralph Bulmer and Jean Martin followed soon after. Jeremy Beckett arrived at the
end of 1955. See Terence Hays (ed.), Ethnographic Presents. University of California Press, 1993.
[96] The following is drawn from the file, ‘Chair of Anthropology and Maori language’, University of
Auckland Archives (UAA). The University of New Zealand had four constituent colleges – Auckland,
Wellington, Christchurch and Otago (Dunedin).
[97] Elkin was the only non-New Zealander, but he had family connections into New Zealand. His father,
from whom he was estranged, was born in New Zealand, and he had spent part of his childhood in
Auckland. His parents separated and his mother returned to Australia. She died soon after and he was
brought up by his German-speaking grandparents.
[98] Cf. Raymond Firth, The Future of Social Anthropology, Man, vol 44 (Jan-Feb, 1944), 19-22.
[99] For a full account of the various suggestions and recommendations see Gray and Munro, Establishing
anthropology and Maori language (studies), 2011, 57-61.
[100] Firth to W.E.H. Stanner, 7 December, 1948. FIRTH7/7/31.
[101] Firth ‘To whom it may concern’, 8 February, 1949. FIRTH 8/1/96.
[102] Dr Taylor, a dentist by training and the Health Department’s principal dental officer, had particular
interests in anatomy and zoology. In 1937 on the grounds of dental arrangements he declared the
‘Piltdown man’ a hoax. Percival Hadfield had previously authored two scholarly books, on totemism
(1938), with Australia being a core region, and on divine kingship in Africa (1949), before enrolling post-
WWII for a PhD in biblical history and literature at the University of Sheffield. The resulting thesis
‘Matthew’s Gospel and the apocalyptic writers’ was finalized in 1952. Hadfield finished his career in the
church as vicar of Youlgraeve in Derbyshire. He died in 1970. One reviewer dismissed his scholarly work, as
‘a thing of shreds and patches, a rehash of older views … and a collection of facts not too skillfully
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arranged, gathered by earlier workers in the field’. He authored: The savage and his totem, London :
Allenson & Co., Ltd., [1938]; Traits of Divine Kingship in Africa. By P. Hadfield, M.A., B.D. London: Watts &
Co. 1949.
[103] Firth to Stanner, 11 March 1955, FIRTH7/7/31.
[104] London Committee 1949
[105] Elkin to William Hollis Cocker (President of the Auckland University College), 23 April 1949,
attachment in Minutes of Council, Auckland University College, 9 June 1949, UAA. The initiating
correspondence is not located so the reason for seeking Elkin’s advice is unknown.
[106] Gray and Munro, op. cit., 2011, 67-70.
[107] Gray, op.cit., 2007, passim.
[108] Geoffrey Gary, ‘“Piddington’s indiscretion”: Ralph Piddington, the Australian National Research
Council and Academic freedom’. Oceania, vol. 64 (3), March, 1994. 217-245.
[109] Firth to W.E.H. Stanner, 12 August 1949, FIRTH7/7/31.
[110] Elkin to Stanner, 8 December 1944. EP: 197/4/2/573.
[111] Stanner to Elkin, 25 October 1948. EP: 197/4/2/573. See Geoffrey Gray, ‘Stanner’s war’ in Geoffrey Gray,
Doug Munro and Christine Winter (eds.), Scholars at War, ANU Press, 2012.
[112] Firth would comment later: ‘Essentially he has seemed unwilling to face responsibility. His refusal of
the Directorship of the East African Institute of Social Research was symptomatic of his tendency to dwell
upon the difficulties inherent in the situation rather than the possibilities of what can be made out of it.
His desire for a really worthwhile achievement sometimes makes him over-elaborate his argument.…
How far complete responsibility for a Research Department would settle and strengthen him as an
administrator I do not know’. Board of Graduate Studies(ANU) Minutes, 27 August 1957, ANUA 193.
Referees’ reports, ‘Electoral Committee [Meeting] for the Chair of Anthropology’, 20 August 1957,
Davidson Papers, ANUA 57/30.
[113] Piddington to Firth, 13 November 1950, FIRTH8/1/96; Firth to Geddes, 14 November 1950, FIRTH8/1/36.
[114] His PhD was published in 1967 as The changing role of the leader in Maori society.
[115] For his continued association with ANU see Spate to Firth 23 December 1968. FIRTH8/2/17; Firth to
Spate 23 January 1969. FIRTH8/2/7; Firth to Spate 16 April 1969. FIRTH8/2/7; Spate to Firth, 29 May 1972
FIRTH7/6/18. Firth’s longer legacy in the Antipodes would be a subject to consider separately and is not our
focus here, although there is no doubt his appointments led to long-lasting change and a more robust
Antipodean anthropology than before the war.