The early ethnographic writings of EW Pearson Chinnery: Government Anthropologist of New Guinea

Abstract

EW Pearson Chinnery (1887–1972) occupied a number of senior positions in the Australian colonial administrations of the territories of Papua and New Guinea in the 1920s and 1930s. His career may therefore be conveniently examined in two parts: his appointment as a District Officer in Papua from 1910 to 1917, and, following service with the Australian Flying Corps during World War I and studies in anthropology at Cambridge University, his work in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea from 1924 to 1937. He was an important administrative official at a time when Australia took the following significant steps to improve the quality of the field staff in the territories: • the appointment of government anthropologists reporting to the colonial administration; • the development of a cadet patrol officer scheme; and • the establishment of the Chair in Anthropology at the University of Sydney. However, Chinnery is not regarded as an important figure in the history of Australian anthropology. This paper offers some explanation as to why he is largely ignored, but seeks first to examine how and why Chinnery developed in interest in ethnology during his initial service in Papua and later when a student at Cambridge in 1919 and 1920.