Francis James Gillen

Francis James Gillen (born October 28, 1855 in Little Para , South Australia , † June 5, 1912 ) was an early Australian anthropologist and ethnologist .

In 1867 Gillen began his civil service career as a postman in Clare . In 1871 he was transferred to Adelaide , where the telegraph business was one of his duties. In 1875 he was involved in the construction of the "Australian Overland Telegraph Line" and in 1892 was appointed mail and telegraph station master of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory .

During his time in the Territory he was involved with the Australian Aborigines and hosted the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia in 1894. He joined the Horn Expedition and met Walter Baldwin Spencer , they wrote together The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899). In 1900, Gillen was elected President of the Anthropological Section at the Melbourne Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. In Alice Springs he was appointed sub-protector for Aborigines . To Spencer's regret, he was transferred from Alice Springs to Moonta in 1899, but in 1901 he received permission from the South Australia government to join Spencer on an expedition that took them to the Gulf of Carpentaria . Their journey led to publication of The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904).

Gillen stayed in Moonta until July 1908 when he became postmaster of Port Pirie . That year Spencer hoped to travel to Western Australia with him, but Gillen's health deteriorated and it became impossible. In 1911 he became physically weaker and he died on June 5, 1912. His wife, nee Miss Besley from Mount Gambier , three daughters and two sons survived him. A brother, Peter Paul Gillen , who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of South Australia for many years, died before him.

Gillen was also named as a co-author on Spencer's The Arunta , published in 1927 .

Works

• with Baldwin Spencer: The northern tribes of Central Australia. London 1904
• with Baldwin Spencer: Across Australia. London, Macmillian 1912
• with Baldwin Spencer: The Arunta: a Study of a Stone Age People. 2 volumes, London, Macmillan 1927
• Gillen's diary: the camp jottings of FJ Gillen on the Spencer and Gillen Expedition across Australia, 1901-1902 , Adelaide, Libraries Board of South Australia 1968
• FJ Gillen's first diary 1875: Adelaide to Alice Springs; March to June , Kent Town, Wakefield Press 1994

literature

• DJ Mulvaney: Gillen, Francis James (1855-1912) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 9. Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1983, ISBN 0-522-84273-9 (English).
• Dictionary of Australian Biography