William Edward Hanley Stanner CMG (24 November 19058 October 1981), often cited as W.E.H. Stanner, was an Australian anthropologist who worked extensively with Indigenous Australians. Stanner had a varied career that also included journalism in the 1930s, military service in World War II, and political advice on colonial policy in Africa and the South Pacific in the post-war period.
He was the Commanding Officer of the 2/1st North Australia Observer Unit (NAOU) during World War II, also known as the "Nackeroos" and "Curtin's Cowboys". The NAOU was the military predecessor to the modern Norforce. Formed in March 1942 and disbanded March 1945, they patrolled northern Australia for signs of enemy activity.
Stanner was an influential figure prior to the successful 1967 referendum on Aboriginal affairs which removed provisions in the Australian Constitution which discriminated against Indigenous Australians. In 1967, the Prime Minister Harold Holt invited Stanner to join Herbert Coombs and Barrie Dexter to form the Commonwealth Council for Aboriginal Affairs and advise on national policy. He subsequently played an important role in establishing the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
Stanner is known for coining and popularising the term "the Great Australian Silence" in his 1968 Boyer Lectures entitled After the Dreaming, which reflected on the silence on Indigenous Australians in Australian history after European settlement. Stanner profoundly changed the way Australians thought about themselves, their country and Aboriginal culture.
Biography A number of biographical references exist, the most detailed being by Diane Barwick, Jeremy Beckett and Marie Reay which was largely completed before his death in 1981.
Early career Stanner was born at Watsons Bay, Sydney on 24 November 1905, the second son of Andrew Edwin Stanner and Mary Catherine Stanner (née Hanley). He was three years old when his father died. He was educated at state schools and won a bursary to Parramatta High School (1919–21), but was unable to stay on after the Intermediate Certificate for financial reasons. Stanner worked for two years in a bank and matriculated by private study. He worked as a journalist while studying at the University of Sydney, initially for the Cumberland Argus. In 1927 Stanner obtained full-time work as a reporter for the Sydney Daily Guardian for Frank Packer, the first of a number of posts in journalism which financed his studies in Australia and England.
At University, Stanner had an interest in athletics, football and was the secretary of the university's League of Nations Society. He stated afterward that his selection of anthropology as a profession was influenced by the famous anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown. Stanner worked as a journalist until 1932 by which time he was chief sub-editor of the Sunday Sun including several years in the Parliamentary Gallery. Stanner won the Frank Albert Prize in anthropology in two successive years and graduated with a BA (Honours) (Anthropology and Economics) in 1932.
In September 1933, as lecturer in anthropology at University of Sydney, in the midst of the Caledon Bay crisis, Stanner wrote a piece in The Sun in praise of the Minister for the Interior's decision not to send a punitive expedition to punish the murderer of Constable Albert McColl in the Northern Territory.
In 1933 Stanner took up a temporary position on the personal staff of Bertram Stevens, the Premier of New South Wales, for whom he drafted parliamentary and public speeches and prepared reports. At that time he met Herbert Coombs and formed an enduring friendship with William Wentworth with whom he worked in later life.
He earned an MA (Class 1 Honours) in Anthropology in 1934 from the University of Sydney, for which he did extensive field research in the Daly River region of Northern Australia. Adolphus Peter Elkin judged Stanner's 1934 thesis on culture-contact at the Daly River as "a work of outstanding quality". Stanner criticised the popular assumption that the main function of the anthropologist was "the naive search for uncontaminated aboriginal cultures". He presented an exposition of a method for studying contact and cultural change, insisting that this was "an important and neglected problem". Barwick, Beckett and Reay wrote in 1985 that already his lifelong concern with the practical value of anthropology to Aboriginal welfare was apparent. Stanner lectured part-time at Sydney University and was the news editor at the World under Sydney newspaperman George Warnecke.
In 1935, on his second field work, Stanner accompanied the Catholic priest Father Richard Docherty to Port Keats, now known as Wadeye, on the south-western coast of the Northern Territory, halfway between the mouths of the Daly River and Fitzmaurice River. Docherty was commissioned to establish a mission in the region and Stanner helped him choose the site. Over the next thirty years, the people of the two river valleys came into the mission and eventually became permanent residents. On his appointment to the Australian National University, Stanner renewed his interest in the Wadeye area, renewing old friendships. Much of his work as an anthropologist was based on his field work with Indigenous Australians in that area.
Stanner moved to London in 1936, completing his PhD at the London School of Economics in 1938 studying under Bronisław Malinowski. Compatriots included Phyllis Kaberry and Piddington. Jomo Kenyatta, the first Prime Minister (1963–1964) of Kenya and subsequently President (1964–1978) was a fellow student. Stanner's doctoral dissertation was an analysis of economic and ceremonial transactions in the Daly River communities. In London, Stanner also worked as a sub-editor in the Foreign Room at The Times.
Early academic appointments and field research included: 1932–36 Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney. 1932, 1934–35 Field research in north and central Australia (for the Australian National Research Council). 1936–38 Research Assistant, London School of Economics. 1937 Personal staff of Commonwealth Treasurer, Lord Casey at the Imperial Conference in London. 1938–39 University of Oxford Expedition to Kenya (Oxford Social Sciences Research Committee).
Under the auspices of Oxford University he did field research in Kenya in 1938–39 as part of the Oxford Expedition to Kenya and East Africa for the Oxford Social Studies Research Committee. This field research was discontinued at the outbreak of World War II when Stanner returned to Australia. He obtained employment at the Department of Information and subsequently acted as adviser to successive Ministers for the Army, Percy Spender and Frank Forde who subsequently became prime minister.
Military service In March 1942, his pre-war experience in northern Australia led to him being directed to "raise and command" to what became the 2/1st North Australia Observer Unit (NAOU), otherwise known as "Stanner's Bush Commandos". At this time he enlisted in the 2nd AIF (1942–1946). Known colloquially as "Nackeroos", the men were deployed in small groups throughout the rugged north of Australia, where they observed and reported on signs of enemy activity, often patrolling on horseback. As the unit's Commander, Major Stanner made contact with many local Aboriginal groups, and employed some to assist his troops as guides and labourers. Nackeroo operations were scaled down as the threat of Japanese invasion passed, and the unit was eventually disbanded in March 1945. The history of the unit was documented in detail by Dr. Amoury Vane.
Promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel (Lt Col) in 1943, on being appointed as assistant director of DORCA.Gray, G. (2012) "W.E.H. Stanner: Wasted war years" in 'Scholars at War' (ed. G.Gray, D.Munro, C.Winter), ANU, Canberra, pp. 95–116 A developer of post-war colonial policy for DORCA, Stanner presented papers to numerous wartime authorities, and finally was appointed Senior Civil Affairs Officer for the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit (BBCAU) until the conclusion of the war.
Career post WW2 He continued his anthropological work after the war, becoming a prominent writer, lecturer and public advocate of the study and appreciation of Aboriginal society and its place in Australia.
Stanner's notable career postings post-World War II included: 1946 Department of External Affairs. This was a temporary appointment working with Sir Frederick Eggleston on a proposed South Seas Commission. 1946–47 Researcher: Papua-New Guinea, Fiji, West Samoa (Institute of Pacific Relations). This led to the delayed publication in 1953 of his first book South Seas in Transition. 1947–49 Foundation Director of the East African Institute of Social Research, Makerere Uganda. 1949–64 Reader in Social Anthropology, Australian National University. Resumed field work in Daly River and Port Keats in the Northern Territory. 1953–56 Australian Commissioner, South Pacific Commission. 1961 Convenor and chairman, Commonwealth Conference on Aboriginal Studies. 1961–62 First Executive Officer, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. 1964–70 Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, Australian National University. 1967–77 Appointed to Commonwealth Council for Aboriginal Affairs. 1971 Emeritus Professor and Honorary Fellow, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Australian National University. 1972–74 Visiting Fellow, Research School of Pacific Studies. 1974–75 Special Adviser to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. 1975–79 Department of Prehistory and Anthropology, Australian National University. 1977–79 Consultant to Northern Territory Land Commission. 1971–1981 Honorary Fellow, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), Australian National University
Stanner also held a number of key leadership positions at the Australian National University including: 1954 Chairman of the Governing Body, University House, Australian National University. 1954–55 Bursar, University House, Australian National University. 1960–1981 Honorary Member, University House, Australian National University.
Referendum in 1967 Stanner was an influential figure prior to the successful 1967 referendum on Aboriginal affairs which removed provisions in the Australian Constitution which discriminated against Indigenous Australians.
Council for Aboriginal Affairs In 1967, the Prime Minister Harold Holt invited Stanner to join Herbert Coombs and Barrie Dexter to form the Council for Aboriginal Affairs and advise on national policy. Stanner held that position through successive political regimes, including the Whitlam government, which began to implement much of the program Stanner, Coombs and Dexter endorsed: land rights, the movement to outstations, increased social welfare and community-based economies.Altman 2008, pp 274–8
Stanner brought to this policy package an anthropologist's sensitivity to the importance of ceremony and ritual. In particular, at the handover of the first native title grant to the Gurindji people at Wattie Creek in the Northern Territory in 1975, Stanner recommended Prime Minister Gough Whitlam should perform the memorable symbolic act of pouring earth through the hands of Gurindji leader, Vincent Lingiari.Dexter 2008, pp 83
Boyer Lectures in 1968