Person

Thorpe, William Walford (1879 - 1932)

Born
24 March 1879
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died
2 September 1932
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation
Anthropologist and Ethnologist

Summary

William Thorpe, after a varied employment record that included copper smithing and wattle stripping, joined the staff of the Australian Museum in 1899 as a labourer, night watchman and mechanical assistant. In 1900 he became assistant to the museum's Director, Robert Etheridge. Thorpe was appointed in 1908 as the Museum's Ethnologist, a field in which he was self-taught and in which he developed an unrivalled knowledge of the material culture of the indigenous people of Australia and the nearby Melanesian islands. He published a number of papers in scientific journals. In 1929 he travelled to Auckland, New Zealand, as consultant to the War Memorial Museum in the installation of their displays. Thorpe was also knowledgeable in numismatics. In 1928 he helped found the Anthropological Society of New South Wales and was joint editor of its magazine, Mankind, from 1931. The Australian Museum holds over 570 artefacts collected by Thorpe.

Details

Chronology

1898
Career event - Joined the Australian Museum
1900 - 1908
Career position - Assistant of Robert Etheridge, Australian Museum
1908 - 1932
Career position - Ethnologist, Australian Museum
1928
Career position - Co-founder, Anthropological Society of New South Wales
1928 - 1932
Career position - Secretary, Anthropological Society of New South Wales
1931 - 1932
Career position - Joint editor, Mankind
1932
Career event - Elected Associate Member (Anthropology), Australian National Research Council

Related Corporate Bodies

Archival resources

John Oxley Library, Manuscripts and Business Records Collection, State Library of Queensland

  • William Walford Thorpe - Records, 1890 - 1899, OM67-22; John Oxley Library, Manuscripts and Business Records Collection, State Library of Queensland. Details

Published resources

Books

  • McCarthy, F. D., New South Wales Aboriginal place names and euphonious words, with their meanings (Sydney: Government Printer, 1963), 32 pp. Details
  • Thorpe, W. W., List of New South Wales Aboriginal words and their meanings; with some well-known place names (Sydney: Australian Museum, 1921), 8 pp. Details

Journal Articles

Resources

Gavan McCarthy [P004098] and Helen Cohn

EOAS ID: biogs/P000524b.htm

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"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260