Childe, Vere Gordon (1892 - 1957)

Summary

Vere Childe was educated and did his early archeological work in Australia. He was later Professor of Prehistory Archeology, University of Edinburgh 1927-1945, and then Director of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London 1946-1957. He published widely on theory.

Details

Born Sydney, 14 April 1892. Died Blue Mountains, 19 October 1957. Educated Universities of Sydney (BA 1914) and Oxford (B Litt 1916). Senior resident tutor, St Andrew's College, University of Sydney 1917-18; private secretary to John Storey 1919-21; New South Wales Agent-General's Office, London 1922; librarian, Royal Anthropological Institute, London 1925-26; first Abercromby professor of prehistoric archaeology, University of Edinburgh 1927-45; professor of prehistoric European archaeology and director of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London 1946-57.

Archival resources

University of Sydney, Archives

• Vere Gordon Childe - Records, 1892 - 1957; University of Sydney, Archives. Details

Published resources

Books

• Irving, Terry, The fatal lure of politics: the life and thought of Vere Gordon Childe (Clayton, Vic.: Monash University Press, 2020), 418 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Allen, Jim, 'Childe, Vere Gordon (1892-1957), archaeologist and political theorist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 7: 1891 - 1939 A-Ch, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979), pp. 636-637. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/childe-vere-gordon-5580. Details

Edited Books

• Gathercole, Peter; Irving, T. H.; and Melleuish, Gregory eds, Childe and Australia : archaeology, politics, and ideas (St Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1995), 245 pp. Details
• Harris, David ed., The archaeology of V. Gordon Childe : contemporary perspectives : proceedings of the V. Gordon Childe Centennial Conference held at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 8-9 May 1992 under the auspices of the Institute of Archaeology and the Prehistoric Society (Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1994), 148 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Allen, Jim, 'Perspectives of a sentimental journay: V. Gordon Childe in Australia 1917 - 1921', Australian archaeology, 12 (1) (1981), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1981.12092792. Details
• Derricourt, Robin, 'The making of a radical archaeologist: the early years of Vere Gordon Childe', Australian Archaeology, 79 (Dec.) (2014), 54-64. Details
• Green, S., 'V. Gordon Childe: a biographical sketch', Australian archaeology, 30 (1) (1990), 18-25, https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1990.11681360. Details
• Mulvaney, John, 'From "the dawn" to sunset: Gordon Childe in Melbourne, 1957', Australian Archaeology, 30 (1) (1990), 29-32. Details
• Murray, Tim, 'Second childehood" Gordon Childe and Australian archaeology', Australian archaeology, 30 (1) (1990), 14-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1990.11681359. Details
• Sherratt, Andrew, 'Gordon Childe: paradigms and patterns in prehistory', Australian Archaeology, 30 (1) (1990), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1990.11681358. Details
• Walker, Michael J., 'Gordon Childe [1892-1957] Founder of Modern Archaeology', Quadrant, 27 (April) (1983), 32-35. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q154655. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/76388231. Details
• 'Childe, V Gordon (1892-1957)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-801370. Details

See also

• Allen, Harry, 'The first university positions in prehistoric archaeology in New Zealand and Australia', Bulletin of the history of archaeology, 29 (1:2) (2019), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.5334/bha-606. Details
• Dahlitz, Ray, Secular who's who : a biographical directory of freethinkers, secularists, rationalists, humanists and others involved in Australia's secular movement from 1850 onwards (Balwyn, Victoria: R. Dahlitz, 1994), 192 pp. p.88. Details
• Howes, Hilary, 'Aspects of the historiography of Australian archaeology', Historical Records of Australian Science, 32 (2) (2021), 125-40. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR20017. Details