Lawrence, Peter

Peter Lawrence was born in England into a family who had lived in Australasia since the 1850s. He attended Geelong Grammar School from 1935 to 1939 and commenced tertiary studies in 1940 at the University of Melbourne; later in 1940, he enrolled in classics at Cambridge University. After war service as an administrative assistant with the British Foreign Office, Lawrence continued his studies at Cambridge. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis on "Social Structure and Social Control among the Garia", a people living near Madang in New Guinea.

The University of Sydney appointed Lawrence to the Chair of Anthropology in 1971. At the time, he held the Chair of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Queensland. His first appointment at the University of Sydney was from 1963 to 1965 as senior lecturer in Social Anthropology.

Previously, Lawrence had held research positions at the Australian National University (1952-57) and lectureships in Anthropology at the Australian Government's Department of External Affairs educational institution in the Sydney suburb of Mosman known as the Australian School of Pacific Administration (1957-1960) and at the University of Western Australia from 1960 to 1963. In 1969, Lawrence was Visiting Professor at Queens College City University of New York USA.

The best known of Lawrence's numerous publications, "Road Belong Cargo (A Study of the Cargo Movement in the Southern Madang District, New Guinea)" was published in 1964 by Manchester and Melbourne University Presses ; it was republished, in 1967 and again in 1971 as Melbourne University Press paperback editions, in 1979 and in 1989. The work was translated into French as "Le Culte du Cargo" and Melanesian Pidgin as "Rot Bilong Kago".

Outside the field of Anthropology, Lawrence's published works reflect his interest in poetry. In 1967, the University of Queensland Press published Lawrence's "Juan in Melanesia". "The Dean's Dilemma" appeared in the April 1980 issue of Quadrant, a publication of the Australian Association of Cultural Freedom. In 1977, Quadrant published a special issue as a tribute to Australian poet James McCauley and included Lawrence's essay "The Collegue".

Much in demand as a public speaker, Lawrence spoke mostly about Papua-New Guinea. Between 1976 and 1981, he gave a number of addresses entitled "The Attack on Our Universities". Fancy Elisabeth Rheinstein married Lawrence in 1952. She accompanied her spouse on much of his field work and appears to have acted in the capacity of a research assistant on occasions.

Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Member of the Association of the Social Sciences in Australia and Honorary Fellow of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (USA), Lawrence was former Editor of the University of Sydney periodical "Oceania". He was a member of the Council of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (1966-70) and one-time Chairman of the Advisory Council of the International Training Institute. The latter succeeded the Australian School of Pacific Administration.

From the time of retirement until his death, Lawrence spoke to the Archivist on a number of occasions about transfering his personal archives to the University Archives. These biographical notes have been compiled from papers in the collection.